Chapter Text

And then did the Angels come.  And they wrought terrible vengeance upon the Earth, and purged humanity from its face.  And we who survived dared not to beg God for salvation, lest the Tyrant steal the very prayers from our lips.  And so we wept.

-Sister Yasmine Amunet, “History of the Founding”

Mira waited patiently in the pews.  The Holy Mother was cloistered in discussion with the Sisters.  A new threat, perhaps?  A wraith-ridden band passing through the area?  Mira imagined that something more serious would have led to an immediate evacuation, rather than discussion.  Angels moved quickly, and if one had been assigned to the area, then there was no time to waste.  None of the Sisters could stand against an Angel.

Maybe it had to do with her training?  Mira would be thirteen in a week.  The Sisters had taught her how to cook, how to hunt, how to forage.  She knew how to find shelter, or build it.  She knew how to spot wraith-ridden from their body language (at least in theory).  She could read and write in four languages (though the Holy Mother would insist she should be able to read six, for reasons she never disclosed).  She knew world history, brief though it was.  History-that-was mattered little, after the War.

Mira hoped it was training.  That they were deciding she was ready for more advanced combat training.  Weapons training, with more than the bow.  She had some hand-to-hand combat training already, but Mother insisted that she focus on other pursuits.

Mira was on her feet in an instant when the door to the sanctuary opened.  The Holy Mother’s mouth twisted as she walked past.  “Come on, kid.  Let’s take a walk.”

It was peaceful in the early afternoon sun.  The sisters (the non-combatants, not formal members of the Order, not Sister Warriors) were working in the fields within the walls and without, sowing crops for the spring growing season.  Many of them sang as they worked.  They were calm.  Holy Mother often said Mira needed to be calm too.  And patient.  That was fine.  Mira could be patient.  Mira could be calm.

“So what did you and the Sisters talk about?!”  The words left Mira in a rush.

Mother snorted.  “Damn, girl.  You couldn’t keep it together for three whole minutes?  Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for sure.”  Mother chuckled to herself.

Mira liked moments like this, when Mother laughed.  She had a beautiful smile.  Her dark brown skin was free of wrinkles, though the white starting to show here and there in her hair told a different story than her skin.  Mother refused to wear a habit, but she kept her hair shorn close to her head, so that only the slightest puff of her tight curls remained.  Mira had asked her about it once and was told “Baby girl, if you think I’m growing out my braids without proper hair product, you’re out of your mind.”  She had a scar, or a cluster of them, across her left eye, though she claimed they were from before the War.  Mother insisted the scars were a requirement of her position, though Mira didn’t understand how that could be.

“Are you moving up my training schedule?”  Mira bit her lip, tried to hold in her excitement.

Mother shook her head.  She looked sad.  “Maybe.  We’ve been hearing some chatter, and we’re going to have to make some changes.  We’ve got a new person coming to handle your combat training going forward.  Everything goes smoothly, they'll run some drills with you here, then take you traveling for a bit, then back.  Make sure to pack your bag before bed tonight, they might be here as early as tomorrow.”

Mira wasn’t sure she liked that idea.  New people weren't unheard of.  Sometimes the Sisters came back with refugees, or with children orphaned by wraith-ridden or zealots of Reya or plain old bandits desperately scrounging for food or shelter in the ruins of the old world.  Outside the Shining Cities, or the Protectorate, safety was hard to come by.

“Why a new person?  What can they teach me that you can't?  Mother, you're the best fighter I've ever seen, surely–”

“Girl, you've never been outside the damn convent except to hunt.  Trust me, there's plenty of people out there who could take me in a straight fight.  Which is why I try to avoid those as much as possible.”  She smirked.  “Hell, I used to say no need for combat skills if you could fight from range.  Then I got this.”  She gestured to her left eye.  “Live and learn.”

They walked in silence for a while longer before Mira spoke up.  “And this new person?  Could they take you in a straight fight?”

Mother barked a laugh.  “Ask her when she gets here.  I want to see something.”  Mother's shoulders shook as she tried to hold back laughter.  “But yeah, she could take me.  She could probably take just about anybody.  So when she tries to teach you something, you mind what she says, alright?”

Mira nodded dutifully.  “Yes, Mother.”  A thought occurred to her, and she started to bounce with excitement.  “Oh, oh, is it Sister Dora?!”

Mother chuckled.  “I wish. Nah, Sister Dora is Mother Dora at another Cradle by now.”

Mira frowned.  “The histories say that people could communicate with each other across great distances before the War.  How come you don't talk to Mother Dora that way?”

Mother sighed, the way she did when she was remembering the time before.  Mira loved when Mother spoke about it, even though she frequently used words that Mira barely understood.  “We had a few good years where we could get away with it.  Not quantum stuff, that sends out an energy signature that the Angels can track, so unless the Angels’ Bane is hiding under your bed, we can't use that stuff, ever, unless we cross into Protectorate territory for some reason.  Radio is what we used back before you were born.  Reya's people were too arrogant back then, didn't bother monitoring ‘primitive’ tech.  Then we got Nuriel in an ambush and they stopped thinking that way.  Got Lagos and most of West Africa a good five years free of Reya off the back of that.”  She sighed heavily.  “Of course, that's when they decided to start purging large population centers that didn't have an Angel assigned to rule them.”

That put an end to the conversation.  Mira only knew of the purge from what she had read in books.  Mother didn't like to speak of it.  None of the grownups did, except to say that was when they knew humanity had truly lost the War.

****

The rest of the afternoon, Mira spent sparring with Nadia.  Nadia was a few months older than Mira and a few inches taller.  She had dark tan skin, where Mira's fluctuated between pale and tan depending upon the time of year (her tan had only just started to come in this year).  Where Mira's hair was straight, dark brown, and usually pulled back into a high pony tail, Nadia's hair was jet black, all soft curls that fell around her shoulders in a way that, recently, Mira had started to find very distracting.  This distraction was complicated both by the fact that each of their bodies had begun to develop in new and (to Mira) interesting ways, and that Nadia was Mira's best friend.

But that was something Mira had to put aside for now.  Because this was sparring, and if Mira wanted to show that she was ready for more advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques then she needed to focus on using her speed and strength to make up for Nadia's advantage in height and reach.  As opposed to the way the sweat on Nadia's collarbones perfectly highlighted the brown of her skin–

Mira narrowly avoided a broken nose from a right cross by Nadia, but the punch still threw her off balance.  Even so, it was Nadia who said “Ouch!” and shook her hand.  “Why is your nose so hard?”  Mira chuckled and took the opportunity to wipe the blood from her upper lip and drop back into her stance.

On the next exchange, she managed to catch Nadia's arm in her own and grasp her shoulder for a takedown.  She was getting ready to practice her transition to ground combat when she noticed how dark Nadia's eyes were and froze.

A snort behind her caused her to jump.  “Teenagers.”  Sister Theresa's tone was dismissive.  “Get up, both of you, I'm switching you out.  Mira, you're with Guillaume, Nadia, you're with Matthieu.”

The rest of the session went much more smoothly, and she won handily, even though Guillaume was two years older and a good 15 centimeters taller than her.  He was too slow.

****

Dinner took place in a large hall.  The Cradle was built from the remains of an old monastery, mostly old stone with more recent wood filling in any gaps resulting from age and neglect.  Mira sat at the end of a long table filled mostly with children younger than her.  Nadia sat next to her, Matthieu across from her.

“So Mira, what did the Holy Mother want this morning?”  Matthieu's voice was tentative and warbly.  She understood where the latter came from; it matched his increasingly gangly limbs and pimpled face with his tousled sandy-blonde hair.  The tentativeness, not as much.  Matt had known Mira even longer than Nadia.  His parents conceived him here, while Nadia's had brought her when she was little, after the Sisters rescued their caravan from a small band of wraith-ridden.  They had grown up together.  She wasn't sure why everything suddenly felt confusing between the three of them.

“She thinks I might need to go on a training excursion.  Someone new, she said.  Someone good.  Scary good.”

Nadia leaned closer, then pulled back a bit before they touched.  Her foot tapped idly, distractingly, against Mira's.  “Do you think it's one of the original Sisters?  Maybe Sister Eloise, or Sister Adeline?”  The Sister Warriors from before the War were all legends in one way or another.  Though some were more legendary than others.  

Mira shook her head.  “She said someone better than her, but not Sister Dora.  I don't even know who that could be.”

Matt frowned.  “Maybe one of the mystery sisters?”

Mira and Nadia looked at each other with furrowed brows before looking back at Matt.  “The what?” asked Nadia.

Matt flushed and shook his head.  “Never mind, it's stupid.”

Mira reached across the table and grabbed his hand.  “Hey, Matt?  Come on, don't be like that.  Please?” 

He looked at their hands for a moment then pulled his away.  He kept his eyes on the table.  “It's just, if you read closely, in a lot of the histories … like, that's just a name I came up with in my head, no one talks about them like that.  But like, there's people missing.  Names, I mean.  And like, nobody talks about them, in anything.”

“YEAH!”  Mira jumped in surprise at the strength of Nadia's reaction.  As did the half dozen younger children sitting closest to them.  “Sorry, sorry!”  Nadia turned back to Mira and Matt and lowered her voice.  “No, I've noticed that too.  Like there's parts in some of the histories where there's, like, six Sisters, but only three of them get names.  Or how there's a Sister who was ABSOLUTELY in love with the Betrayer before she turned, but no one ever says anything about her, or even actually says she exists.  Or the fact that I'm, like, 99% sure that the Holy Mother had a wife who was killed before the War.”

“What?  No way,” said Mira.

Nadia nodded.  “And not just from references in the histories.  Like have you ever noticed how she looks at the married couples, especially the ones with two women?  Like she's happy for them, but so sad at the same time?  And Robert told me they saw the Holy Mother crying by herself after Sabine and Aliette's wedding.”

“What's Robert doing spying on people?”  Mira didn't really talk to Robert much, even though they were only a year older than her.  But she found that she REALLY didn't like the idea of them talking to Nadia.

Nadia shoved her with her shoulder.  “They weren't spying, they just were taking a break from the noise out back behind the sanctuary.  Anyway, I think Matt's right.  And wouldn't that be cool?  Getting to learn from someone so secret that nobody knows about them?”

Mira's stomach felt funny at the tone in Nadia's voice, but she tried to ignore it.  Nadia was so smart, and so pretty, and–  Mira spent the rest of the meal in her own head, trying to figure out what it meant that she thought her best friend was pretty.

****

After dinner was traditionally a time of contemplation, meditation, or study for the young and old alike.  Mira chose study in the library tonight.  She had a wooden sculpture she was working on that needed work (it was going to be a bust of Nadia's face), but the conversation from dinner had lodged in her mind.  

She loved reading, and though she generally preferred fiction, her favorite of all was Sister Yasmine.  Yasmine's histories were riveting to Mira, who often found herself lost in thought, trying to imagine what it must have been like to witness the great events described therein (as opposed to Nadia, who sometimes sounded like the histories were a puzzle to be solved).  She mostly hid this interest from the Holy Mother, who had a very different opinion of Yasmine's writing (the words “hyperbolic bullshit” may have been used).

Tonight she was rereading Sister Yasmine's “History of the Founding,” which described the creation of the Protectorate as a bastion against Reya's tyranny, the last great hope of humanity.  She was immersed in her favorite part.

“Then did all hope seem lost.  The Sister Warriors were defeated by the Betrayer, and by the Angels Sammael and Verchiel.  Even the Queen of Hell lay broken before the might of those three, for though she was mighty, and no friend of Reya, she could not stand before their power united.  And the Sisters did plead and beg of the Betrayer to renounce Reya, and reminded her of their love, and her humanity, and the love of one above all others.  But their pleas availed them not, for the Betrayer had given herself heart and soul to the Tyrant, and would not be swayed.”

“And then did the Mirrorsouled speak, and their Voice was the True Voice of God, and they bade the Angel Verchiel to smite her brother, and Verchiel harked to the Voice, and Sammael was slain.  And though half of the Mirrorsouled loved the Betrayer, and half despised her, nonetheless did they speak with one Voice and command Verchiel to slay the Betrayer.  And they did battle, and cut and tore at each other so that the foundations of the Earth shook, until the Angel laid the Betrayer low.  And Verchiel raised the Betrayer's own cruciform blade, the only weapon that could slay her, and would have delivered justice to her then and there.”

“But the Betrayer summoned her terrible might, and unleashed the power of the Halo with an awful bellow, and her scream ripped Verchiel apart and scattered her to the winds.  The Betrayer was vulnerable then, for she had exhausted the unholy force of the Halo to deal such a killing blow, and could not even stand or lift a finger to defend herself.  And the Sisters roused themselves and debated furiously about what was to be done, and whether the Betrayer should be killed then and there.  The decision was made to imprison her instead.  But the next day, the divinium bands made to hold her lay loose upon the floor of her cell, and the Betrayer was gone.  She has not been heard from since.”

Mira's heart pounded as she finished the passage, then doubled its rate when Mira felt Nadia's thigh slide onto the couch against her own.  “Ooh, I love that part.”

Mira smiled, feeling suddenly shy and not sure why.  “Me too.  Sometimes I like to imagine what would have happened if I had been there.”

“Yeah?”  Nadia's face was so close, Mira could feel the heat of her breath.  “What would you have done?”

“Killed her.  She's the reason we lost the War.  She's the reason there even was a War in the first place.  Everyone who died, everyone suffering, it's all because of her.  She deserved to die.”  Mira sucked in a breath.  “My parents would still be alive if it wasn't for her.”

Mira didn't realize she was crying until she felt Nadia's fingers brushing away her tears.  She leaned into the touch, and then rested her head on Nadia's shoulder.  “I thought you didn't know who your parents were?” Nadia whispered.

“I don't, but I'm not stupid.  I hear Mother say things when she's not thinking.  She knew them.  And they're not here now.  It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.”

They sat in silence for a while before Nadia spoke.  “Is it OK if I feel bad for her sometimes?"

“Who?  Mother?”

“No.  The Betrayer.”

Mira sat up in surprise.  “What!?”

“She had a really sad life.  Did you ever read Brother Carlo's Commentaries of the Demon?”

Mira shook her head.

“Oh, it's really good.  He actually visited the Demon Queen and interviewed her over a period of several months.  She is so funny, and just not impressed by him at all, but she also tells a lot of stories about before the War, and about the Betrayer.  Most scholars don't take it very seriously, because it's the Queen of Demons, but she was there, right?  And they weren't.”  Nadia shook her head.  “Anyway, she says the Betrayer basically had no life of her own.  She lost her mom when she was little, was paralyzed until she received the Halo.  And then she only had a few months of freedom before Reya turned her.”  Mira watched Nadia bite her lip and look up.  “I just think that's really sad.  She had nothing and still lost everything.  I pity her.”

“You're a really good person, Nadia.”

Nadia looked up at her.  Before Mira could register that Nadia was looking at her lips, she felt the quick pressure of Nadia's mouth against her own.  Nadia looked at her apprehensively, and Mira giggled.  Nadia giggled back, and kissed her again, just as quickly.  “Um…yeah.  So, uh, goodnight?”  Nadia smiled sheepishly and started to stand.

Mira grabbed the back of Nadia's neck and pulled her back in for another kiss.  “Yeah, uh right.  Good night.  Like, really, really good.”  Mira grinned.

Nadia blushed and shook her head.  “Shut up, you're such a dork.”

Mira couldn't stop smiling.  “Goodniiiight.”

“Goodniiiiight.”  Nadia tried for a mocking tone, but it was undermined by her continuing blush, and her biting her thumb and looking away as she backed away.

“Sweet dreams, Nadia.”

“Sweet dreams, Mira.”  Then Nadia blew her a kiss, and left.

****

Mira did sleep well that night.  She remembered few of her dreams when she woke, but she remembered that many of them were of Nadia.  Sitting together in the fields watching the sun rise, surrounded by goats for some reason, feeling completely at peace.  Flying, above the fields, though she felt oddly out of control (and why was it the lack of control that was odd, and not the fact that she was flying?), and she wanted so badly for Nadia to join her but instead Nadia whispered “I'll come with you next time,” even though Nadia was too far away to hear.  Sitting at Mother's knee by a fire, reading stories of ancient heroes, myths and legends from long before the War and feeling so safe, and Nadia curling up with her, even though she had not known Nadia yet at that age.  Cuddling against Nadia in bed, then rubbing against her, and feeling so warm, and not understanding how or why or what and so everything was indistinct and blurry and GOOD.  And Nadia tapping on her shoulder, “Wake up, wake up, Mira, Mira, you have to wake up, wake up WAKE UP–”

“MIRA!!!!”

And she woke to the sound of screams and metal.

The Holy Mother was leaning over her and shaking her, looking more scared than Mira could remember.  “Mira, get up, get your bag.  You need to go, now.”

Mira shot up and started moving.  Raids were always a possibility, and they had drilled for this, though Mira could tell this was no drill.  “Which rally point?”

Mother shook her head.  “This is different.  No rally point.  Head east, then cut southeast.  Keep moving until you get to the mountains.  She should find you before then.  You listen to what she tells you, you'll be safe with her, ok?”

Mira started to nod before she realized the implications of what Mother was saying.  “But what about everyone else?  What's going to happen to all of you?  I have to find Nadia, what if she's–”

Mother grabbed her by the shoulders.  “She's fine.  Everyone will be fine.  Trust me.  Right now, we need to get you out.  So get your damn bag, and follow me.”

Mira nodded and grabbed her bag.  She was so scared, and was having trouble controlling her breathing, but it was fine, she would push it down, she had to be brave.  She turned to follow Mother, but Mother grabbed her gently by the face. 

“Baby girl?  Deep breaths.  What weapon formed against you shall prosper?”

Mira took a deep breath, in and out.  “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.”

“Where are your parents?”

Another breath, in and out.  “They're watching over me, always.”

“And if someone lays one damn finger on you, what's going to happen?”

“I will be avenged sevenfold.”

“So what do you have to be afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“You're goddamn right.”  Mother nodded fiercely and kissed Mira's forehead.  “Now let's go.”

They went out the window of Mira's sleeping quarters (she stayed in the church, with Mother) and made their way around the building to the east, past other houses and people fleeing.  To the southwest she could see flashes of light, reddish gold.  She tried hard not to think of what that meant.  The church was on fire, as were the Sisters’ barracks, but most of the homes seemed to be untouched, the fields too.  She thought that perhaps everything would be alright, perhaps Mother would even come with her, until they rounded a corner approaching the eastern wall.

“Halt, in the name of the Angel Uriel!”  The voice rang out from behind them and Mira froze.  

Mother turned slowly and looked over Mira's shoulder.  She whispered without moving her lips, “don't turn around, and when you hear the boom, you RUN out the east gate and you don't look back.”

Mother walked past her slowly, and Mira heard from behind her.  “The Angel who?  No offense, but never heard of ‘em.  Sounds made up.”  

“Your insolence is noted, peasant.  You…wait.  You are the heresiarch of this community, yes?  The Angel will wish to speak with you directly.  You and the child will come with me.  N–”

The sound was like thunder but louder, closer, to the point that it reverberated through Mira's body, sending pins and needles through her spine.  She was too shocked to run, to move, to do anything but listen to the screams of the man who had spoken, and then a mechanical sound, like a lock being locked and unlocked in rapid succession.  The next boom startled Mira out of her paralysis, and she ran.

****

Mira didn't stop until she was deep enough into the woods that she couldn't see the light from her home burning anymore.  Then she slowed and began hiding her tracks.  She walked backwards through her own footsteps until she reached a large rock.  She clambered over it and let herself down gently on the other side.  She was about to begin moving again, this time being careful to leave little to no tracks, when she heard voices approaching.  She ducked down low, her back against the rock.

“So that's all it takes then?”

“That's it.  Follow these simple steps and you, too, can be assigned the worst possible details for eternity.”

“Well I'm already here with you, so I guess it can't get much worse.  Who are we even supposed to find out here?”

“No one.  In fact, let's sit down for a while.”

She heard them rustling.

“What do you mean, ‘no one?’”

“We're bait.  Captain says we're out here looking for anyone who escaped, there were some who got out right when we came in, then there was a girl with their leader, the one with the guns, she made a run for it, some of their Sister Warriors got loose.  But really, Mr. Who Sees All was hoping for the Apostate, or the Heretic, some intel report.  We're here to get killed by one of them, loudly, so the Angel knows where to go.”

“Glory to the Goddess.”  He did not sound particularly happy.

“Goddess ain't here.  Captain ain't here.  And if Uriel, Who Sees All, could really see all, we wouldn't be out here.  So I say we give it another little bit, then head back in and tell them the trail ran cold.”

“Works for me.”

They sat for a while, the three of them all waiting for the two to return.  

After a while, the less knowledgeable one asked, “Do you think they'll do the heresiarch publicly?  As an example?”

“Nah.”  The soldier put on an exaggeratedly deep voice.  “Their leader is not to be harmed.  She is a known associate of the Abomination.  She may be valuable as a hostage.”

“Lucky her.”

“Right.  Lucky.”

When they left, Mira made her way southwest until she found a place that offered some concealment, under a fallen log that had landed on another, creating a gap between the mossy ground.  There, Mira laid herself down to sleep.

****

The first light of the sun woke her.  She came to consciousness all at once, the unfamiliarity of the moss under her and the log above her startling her eyes open.  She held still, remembering her training.  “You wake up in the woods, or an unfamiliar place, you don't move.  Get your bearings, identify threats, gather intel.  THEN you can move.”  Mother’s voice in her mind.

Moss close, and the damp smell of it and the earth beneath.  Grass past that.  A stray white flower.  And there, not three meters away, a doe, bending down to nibble on the grass in the dim light of dawn.  Mira stifled a breath, and the sound caused the deer to turn, its beautiful black eyes gazing back at her.  Her tiredness, her fear, all of it washed away in that moment as she experienced a feeling of connection, and peace.  Then an arrow pierced the doe's left eye.

“You see that shot!?!”  A gruff voice, male, in French, coming from behind her and to the right (or where the right would be, if she sat up).  

“Good eating tonight.”  Another voice, sharper, also male, close to the first.  Also in French.

She stilled herself and slowed her breathing.  With any luck, they wouldn’t notice her until they dragged the carcass away.

The two men entered the clearing, one after the other.  The first, heavy set, red haired, the other thinner and slightly taller.  Both wore long beards and animal hides.  She would have mistaken them for bandits if not for the red mist flowing out of them.

Mira didn't know what to make of it.  She had always been taught that wraiths were invisible.  That was the entire purpose to which the Halo had been put before the War, allowing its Bearer to see and hunt wraiths, so that Sister Warriors could slay them.  She had spent hours in lessons with Sisters who had fought wraith-ridden, listening to descriptions and watching mimicry of the telltale signs of possession.  And for what?  Here they were, plain as day.  Red mist, with red skulls occasionally pulling free from the bodies they rode.

They bantered with each other as she waited, the one riding the heavier body congratulating itself on its shot, the other teasing it and denying credit in return.  They went on in that fashion as they tied the deer’s hooves together, front to front, back to back, and hoisted it up on their shoulders to carry back to their camp.  They had not seen her.

She waited until they left the clearing to slowly climb out.  She should have waited longer.

She let out a yelp as a large hand grabbed her roughly by the hair and yanked her to her feet.  “Missed one,” sneered a woman, roughly two meters tall, well-muscled and well-fed, though missing several teeth.  A fighter, though whether before or after possession, Mira couldn't tell.

The two men came back.  The taller one snorted and spat.  “Now where'd this one come from.  Did we miss a refugee band?”

The woman shook her head.  “I'm thinking settlement, got found out by the bootlickers.  Two rations of wine on it.”

“You're on.”

“Same,” added the shorter man.

“Well, little one?  Settle it up for us, will you?”

Mira spat in the woman's face.  The woman stared back in shock for a moment, then laughed.  “Oh my.  Feisty, aren't you?  We've got a couple who lost their bodies that'll be fighting to get their claws into you.  Get the meat, I'll carry her–”  If the wraith meant to say more, it was interrupted, as a spray of arterial red covered Mira's face and torso and left the wraith's ride gasping and clawing at her throat as the wraith emerged from the woman, crimson and monstrous, and turned its disembodied skull to face Mira.

No, nonono , Mira scrambled back on her elbows, it was going to take her, she couldn't let it, she had to run.  The wraith began to drift towards her–

–before a chain arced wide and wrapped itself around the wraith's throat, again and again, until the blade at the end of the chain sliced against the wraith's edge and it danced back from her.  Mira had never heard of such a weapon, divinium or otherwise (and it must be divinium, what else could harm or bind a wraith?), and then the chain was yanked back, hard, and the wraith with it to the chain's wielder.

The woman was on the tall side of medium height, tan skin, dark hair shaved short on the sides and pulled into a low bun in the back.  She had eyes like Mira's, with the slender length to them that Nadia more than once called “beautiful.”  Her body was mostly covered by dark fabric, close-fitting but loose enough to move well, but Mira could see that she was strongly built, and tattoos in eye-bending patterns wove their way up the sides and around the back of the woman's neck.

The woman snatched the wraith out of the air with one hand, grabbing it by the skull and squeezing until the wraith's head cracked, and then shattered.  The mist dissipated as the wraith died, only faint wisps remaining that licked around the woman's form.  Divinium tattoos in her hands?  Or laced in her gloves, perhaps?

Mira watched in awe as the woman silently turned to face the other two.  The tall one was not so silent.  “You just made the last mistake of your whole life.”  He and the other one started towards the woman, drifting wide so she would have to turn her back to one in order to focus on either.

The woman smirked in response.  She pulled a rod from behind her back.  Mira missed what the woman did to activate it, but the rod rapidly extended into a long spear.  The woman promptly used the unexpected increase in reach to rush the shorter man and stab him through the throat.  Mira noted the spear must be divinium as well, given that the wraith promptly perished.  Who was this woman, wandering through the forest with so much divinium on her person in weapons and tattoos?

Mira was so distracted by this thought that she had no time to call out a warning as the taller man, the last remaining wraith-ridden, swung at the woman from behind.  Mira had heard tales of the impossible strength and endurance granted by a wraith, how one wraith-ridden could easily face and defeat a half-dozen humans.  She imagined this woman could face down a dozen or more.  The woman tilted to the side, almost casually, without even bothering to look behind her.  She reached up and grabbed the wraith-ridden's fist as she did, then yanked down so that she snapped the man's elbow over her shoulder.  She spun around without releasing the man's arm, then used it to pull him forward as she leveled him with a devastating front kick.  Without hesitation or wasted motion, she spun the spear tip down and slammed it into the man's chest, killing him and the wraith.  Equally smoothly, though now more slowly, she pulled the spear out and reversed it before dropping to one knee and slamming the butt of the spear into the ground.  This apparently activated the spear's extension mechanism in reverse, and it collapsed into a baton (with a blade concealed in one end).

The woman rose and looked at Mira.  Mira waited and stared, but the woman said nothing.  Mira's patience ran out first.  “Who the hell are you?” Mira demanded, trying her best to mimic how Mother sounded when she wanted answers and no nonsense.

The woman quickly brought a thin rod to her lips that made a puffing sound.  Mira felt a sharp pain in her neck, then everything went dark. 

Chapter Text

You exaggerate this heretic's capabilities.  She is mere flesh.  Rotting meat.  Like all of you.  I will tolerate no further excuses, nor will I rely upon you for further failures.  You are instructed to lure her in and send for me.  I will show you how little mortal strength can avail your kind in the face of Reya's might.

-Intercepted communication from the Angel Nuriel, five days before his demise in Edumanom

Mira woke slowly, as though someone had stuffed wool inside her head and she couldn’t quite sense the world through all the fuzz.  This had value, though.  It meant she could take her time, get her bearings.  It was night, she could hear crickets.  Outdoors, from the breeze.  She was lying down on something soft.  Blanket?  She could feel heat against her face, light dancing against and through her eyelids.  She smelled meat cooking.  She strained her ears, tried to focus on sounds.  Was the woman still there?  Her hands and feet were not bound, so at the very least–

“You're doing well, but you need to work on your breathing.”

The woman's voice was deep.  She spoke English with an accent she had heard older adults describe as “British,” though no such country existed anymore.

“Longer, deeper breaths.  Slow.  When you woke up, your breathing accelerated.  Try slowing it down again.  Deep breath in and hold.”

Mira recalled Mother's admonition to mind her new teacher.  She did as instructed, and kept her eyes gently shut.

“Good.  Now out, slowly, and pause before you breathe in again.”

She breathed out, pacing her lungs.

“Excellent.  You may wish to practice that from time to time.  Keeping your eyes shut is good, but your breathing will give you away to someone paying attention.”  A pause.  “You can open your eyes now.”

So Mira did, and looked around.  The woman had made camp at the bottom of a shallow gorge under a rocky outcropping.  Mira watched as the firelight flickered against the stone above them, watched the rock split and disperse the smoke until it faded into the darkness.  They would be facing east, so that any pursuers could not see the light.  Satisfied that she was in no immediate danger, Mira looked to her captor, or teacher.

The woman watched her across the fire, almost unblinking.  She chewed the meat from a bone as she did, and Mira saw that the woman was roasting something over the fire.  It smelled like venison.  Mira’s mind began to spin with questions about where the deer came from, whether it was the same one from earlier, and whether the woman had carried both Mira and the deer carcass for who knows how long, and how, but one concern was at the forefront of her mind.

“You drugged me.”  The woman didn’t even look embarrassed about it.  If anything, Mira would have sworn she saw the corner of the woman’s mouth twitch.  Mira felt at her neck, where the hole from the dart had already scabbed over.  “Why did you do that?”

The woman's face was so blank that Mira wondered if it was on purpose.  “You looked like you would be a handful.”  She reached out and grabbed a rib from the flame.  She pulled it off and held it out towards Mira.

Mira took the food and began to eat sullenly.  The woman passed her a roll of bread from her pack.  Mira accepted this too.  “So you shot me with, what, a blowgun?”

The woman sighed softly.  “Judging from the state you were in when I found you, and where I found you, you slept in the woods some distance from the Cradle.  I presume you did not run away from home, which suggests that there was something you were running from.  Given my sources of information, I presume there was a raid, almost certainly at night.  You will not have had much sleep, and we need to put as much distance between us and the attackers as possible.  Not to mention the wraiths, who will certainly have been travelling with a larger group.  Now you are rested, refreshed, and we have made better progress than we would have otherwise.  You’re welcome.”

Mira was mindful of Mother’s admonition, and was trying very, very hard not to despise this woman.  She focused on her breathing.  It didn’t help much.  “I could have helped.  And I could have walked.  There’s no way we made better progress with you carting me and a deer carcass around.”  As she said it, Mira looked around for the cart, and presumably the horse, or horses, or donkey, or carriage, whatever the woman had used to carry her.

The woman smiled softly.  “I didn’t cart you.  I had you under one arm, the deer in the other.”

That was hard for Mira to believe.  The deer the wraiths had killed was a full-grown doe.  She had been on hunting trips before, and not even Sister Angela would carry one full-grown deer all the way back to the Cradle, much less a deer plus a person, one under each arm, through unfamiliar woods in the middle of the night.  On the other hand, there was nothing else in the area.  Just her, and the woman, and the woman’s pack.  

Mira opened her mouth to call the woman a liar then paused.  The woman was watching her.  Studying.  Waiting for a response.  Was this a test?  She changed what she was about to say.

“How?”

The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched.  “I’m a lot stronger than I look.  We can talk more about it when we get where we’re going.”

“And where is that?”

“Home.  Or at least a safe place to rest, for the time being.”

As Mira ate, the fog cleared from her mind, and the situation clarified in her mind.  “We have to go back.”

The woman cocked her head to the side.  “Do we?”

“Yes!”  Mira probably shouldn’t have yelled at this woman, but this was important, and the woman shouldn’t have drugged her, so she didn’t feel too bad about it.  “The Holy Mother was captured!  And N–, my friends, the Sisters, all the people, we need to go back and rescue them!”  She stood up, and was proud that she didn’t wobble with the dizziness.  Perhaps the fog had not entirely cleared.

The woman opposite her did not move.  “Do you intend to run all night?”

“What?”

“You should walk back and forth a little bit to get your blood pumping.  And here, drink, it’ll help your body metabolize the drug faster.”  The woman tossed Mira a water bottle, steel, old, with a plastic cap.  Mira caught it without fumbling, barely. “While you do that, think about what you just said.”

Mira walked, and drank, and thought, and stewed at this woman.  “You can fight.  Holy Mother said you were dangerous.  A warrior.  You could save them.  If they've been taken, there will be a wagon train of some kind, or they're on foot, they'll be moving slowly, even with a day lost we could–”

“Stop.”  The woman held up her hand.  “It's alright.  You haven't been taught this yet, it seems.  They aren't going anywhere.”

“Then why–”

“And they aren't in any danger.  Reya doesn't care about some community in the middle of nowhere with no divinium.  They'll have the leader swear an oath to worship Reya, publicly, and expect to reap the benefit of that worship in divine energy.  Those people have nothing else that Reya wants.  If they continue to bend the knee, they are an asset.  If not, it isn't worth her trouble to root out every lingering vestige of wild humanity from the world.  Extra food, extra housing, the cost of transporting potential rebels to a Shining City, all of it is a cost she's unwilling to bear just for extra workers.  She'll call it mercy, her soldiers will sing her praises, and even one person in the community believing it creates a risk that it is no longer a safe haven for people like me.  That it becomes a trap for people like me.  Which is something Reya cares about.”  The woman seemed so calm, so confident, but she didn't know what she was talking about, Mira was sure of it.

“That's not true.  They came for the Holy Mother, they knew who she was, they–”

“STOP.”  The woman's voice was harder this time.  “Why do you say that.”

“There were two soldiers who came after me.  I hid, and I heard them talking.  They said…they said they knew who the Holy Mother was.  That she was friends with someone important, she was useful.”

The woman's stare was intense.  “Mira, this is important.  Did they say the raid was because of her?”

Mira played with her fingers as she thought back to the night before.  “No.  They said they knew who she was, they didn't say they came because of her.”  

The woman noticeably relaxed.  “Then she'll be fine.  Mary has survived a great deal.  She'll survive this.  One of the Sisters will arrange for a message to be relayed to the Protectorate.  But by now, she's already escaped, or at worst is in one of the Shining Cities planning her escape.  We don't know which one, which means we don't know where to begin to look.”

“Which is why we're not going back.”  Mira understood now.  The woman nodded.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence.  After, Mira asked, “So who are you?”

The woman tutted, her eyes never leaving Mira’s.  “Are those the best manners Mary was able to impart?”

Mira rolled her eyes.  “You drugged me and basically kidnapped me–”

“Rescued you.”

“--and then kidnapped me, you haven't introduced yourself even though you obviously know who I am, and I'm grateful that I'm not wraith-ridden against my will or anything, but you aren't exactly Ms. Manners either, mystery lady.  So excuse me for not introducing myself first.  What's so funny?”

Somewhere along the way, the woman had begun visibly trying to hold back a grin.  “Nothing.  You just remind me of someone.”

Mira would come back to that later.  “So?  Who are you?”

The woman sat silently for a moment.  “To you, your teacher.  To the rest of the world, just an old heretic.”

Mira's eyes widened.  “Like…THE Heretic?  Like the Heretic and the Apostate?”

The woman stiffened.  “Where did you hear those names?”

“The soldiers, they were talking about someone who sees everything and how he was looking for them.  The Heretic and the Apostate.  That's you?  Well, one of them is you?”

“Why didn't you mention this before?  I asked you what the soldiers said.”

“You asked me what they said about the Holy Mother.  You were actually really specific about that.  Actually you asked specifically if they said the raid was about the Holy Mother.”

Her teacher's jaw tensed.  “And they said they were looking for both?  The Heretic and the Apostate?"  Mira nodded, and her teacher's shoulders loosened.  "Good.  That means the mole was in the Cradle.  We should be safe moving forward.”

She stood up and walked away, leaving Mira bewildered.  “What mole?  What are you talking about?  Where are you going?”

Her teacher responded without turning around.  “Just taking a quick look around.  I'll be back shortly.”

“Shortly” proved to be too long for Mira to keep her eyes open.

****

The first morning traveling was largely uneventful.  Her teacher led them to a creek, and followed it east for a time.  “This water will lead to larger and larger waterways and, eventually, a river.  In this case, the river we want is the Rhone, but we will need to travel further east for that.  North as well, for the crossing we need.”

And so they continued, north and east, pushing against the sun through forest and over hill.  As she leapt from one large rock to another on a particularly rough stretch, Mira looked at her teacher.  The woman moved easily from rock to rock.  The stray gray hairs at her temple made Mira think that the woman should have been sweating, at least, after a few hours moving non-stop through difficult terrain.  Whatever the source of her strength, she clearly had more than her share of endurance as well.

The woman, the “Heretic,” was silent, except for her little lessons.  “You can see there’s a game trail, there.”  “Note the droppings, there.  If we were not well stocked, you could follow that spoor to game.”  “Do you know this tree?  Spanish chestnut, the nuts are a good source of energy.  Some protein and vitamin C as well.”   

Mira waited until after lunch, when they stopped in the mid-afternoon, to ask.  “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me something?”

Her teacher chewed a nut and swallowed around a slight smile.  “Have my lessons so far been boring you?”

“No.  Sometimes.  I already know some of this, but I could have stayed home and learned the rest.  And would have.  Mother said you were a fighter, better than any of the Sister Warriors we had.  I thought you were going to teach me how to fight.  How to protect people.”

Her teacher’s eye twitched at the mention of the Holy Mother, then she raised an eyebrow.  “Eager one.  We’ll train at the end of the day, every day, before bed.  For now, and until you can defend yourself properly, your technique is to run and hide.  Do you understand?”

Mira gnawed the inside of her cheek.  “Yes, teacher.”

****

“Tell me about yourself.”  Mira almost jumped into the campfire, thinking that someone new had joined them in secret.  But there was no one else.

Mira furrowed her brow.  “Why don’t you tell me about your self?  Since you knew all about me before we even met and I heard about you for the first time two days ago and still don’t know your name.”

The Heretic smiled faintly and poked at a log in the flame.  “I’m just an old soldier who lived too long.  Far too long, if you ask some.”

Mira shifted, sat up a little more.  “You were there at the start?  Before the war?”

The Heretic didn’t quite sigh, but inhaled deeply all the same.  “Long before.  I was a Sister Warrior before anyone living had heard the name Reya.”

Mira didn’t mean to hold her breath.  “You knew the Betray–”

“Don’t call her that.”  Mira’s teacher didn’t shout, but neither were the words, sharp in the night, a request.  “She…I knew the last Halobearer.  And the one before her.  And the one before her.”

Mira waited a bit, gauging her teacher’s mood, before asking more.  “What was it like?”

Her teacher shrugged.  “It was, in retrospect, a very silly time.  We went around killing wraiths.  Over and over and over again, we found them, the Halobearer spotted them, and we killed them.  Sometimes people.  Those who crossed the Church.  And Halobearers died, and Sister Warriors died, and we kept on, living our short lives and hoping that we would die so God would take us to Heaven and forgive our sins.”

“You mean…you mean the killing?”

The Heretic looked up sharply at her for a moment, then huffed a laugh.  Then another, and another, and soon she was laughing uncontrollably, though Mira couldn’t tell at what.  It was the most emotion Mira had seen from the woman yet.

The Heretic’s laughter eventually slowed, and she wiped tears from her eyes.  “No, no, though that would have made more sense, wouldn’t it?  No, the killing seemed perfectly fine to me.  I hoped God would forgive me for kissing a girl, and for finding women beautiful and desirable instead of men.”

Mira looked at her teacher in confusion.  “That’s…what’s wrong with kissing girls?  Lots of people kiss girls.  I’m pretty sure the Holy Mother has kissed girls.  Even I’ve kissed a girl.”

Her teacher took another deep breath, and her eyebrows rose in the middle with an emotion Mira couldn’t identify.

“Tell me about her.”

Mira picked up a stick and began slowly peeling the bark off in strips.  She had never talked about Nadia before to someone who didn't know her.  Hadn't had the chance to talk to anyone about her at all, since Mira started to feel different about her.  "She's my best friend.  She's the smartest person I know.  She reads all the time, and so fast, I don't know how she does it.  She's really funny, not...she doesn't try to be, she's just silly, sometimes.  She's a good fighter, too, not as good as me, but better than most of the others our age.  She's kind.  Like, she always thinks about other people, like how their minds work, she's always sticking up for people, trying to help people get along.  She has this...."  Mira trailed off, rather than tell her teacher how much she loved Nadia's curls, and how her finger fit perfectly inside them, and how Nadia smiled at her when she played with Nadia's hair that way.

Mira poked at the dirt with her stick, willing the heat in her face to subside so she could look up again.  She rubbed a tear away with the heel of her hand.

"She sounds lovely, Mira.  I hope I get to meet her someday.  I am certain she is fine, and I promise you, when your training is done, you will see her again."  Her teacher stood up to do her nightly scouting.  "Now get some rest.  I'll see you in the morning."

Mira wished she believed her.

****

Mira lay on the ground for a moment, admiring the stars and the crescent moon.  Then she picked herself up off the ground for the fourth time.

“Again.”

Her teacher might have been talking about the weather.  It rained again yesterday.  That family of foxes came by again this morning.  Mira suspected the Heretic was a sadist for this reason.  Hurting people shouldn’t be normal.  Never mind that the Heretic had only flipped Mira off her feet, and that it was the ground that had done the hurting.

Mira settled into her stance, just like she had been taught at home.  A spot of anger and something tight flared in her chest as her teacher twisted her lips and rolled her eyes.  “We’re going to spend some time tonight unlearning bad habits, and working on building new ones.  Unless you would like to practice your tumbling some more?”

Mira didn’t like grinding her teeth. Sister Eleanor said it was a bad habit, that Sister Eleanor's father used to do it and one day they cracked open and he had to see a special kind of doctor just for teeth, the kind they only had now in the Protectorate, if there.  Ever since she learned that, grinding her teeth didn’t help Mira calm down anymore, it just made her angry at herself in addition to whatever she had been angry with to begin with.  Because she wasn’t supposed to do it, and she did it anyway, and that meant she was doing something wrong.  She was failing.

Mira blinked rapidly and rolled her shoulders.  “I don’t know, do you want to keep beating up a teenager just because you’re stronger and faster than she is?”  It was the wrong thing to say, Mira knew it, but it was another thing she couldn’t really help.  She didn’t like bullies.  Of course, usually Mother was there, or somewhere, anywhere, close by so that things couldn’t get too out of hand.  Mira started to feel nauseous as she listened to the crickets, and the owls, and her teacher didn’t say anything for a little while.

When Mira’s teacher did speak, her voice wasn’t angry.  She was still just talking about the weather.  Mira didn’t know if that was good or bad.  

“Do you really think that I keep knocking you down because I’m faster and stronger?”

Mira thought for a moment, but she didn’t break her stance.  She learned that lesson two falls ago.  “But you are faster and stronger.”

Her teacher walked closer and didn’t assume a stance.  She just stood there, staring.  “Do you think you can imitate the throw that I’ve been using?”

Mira thought for a moment, then nodded.  The footwork was different than what she was used to, the grip also, almost like a dance, like water.  But she thought she could make it work.

“Then show me.”  Her teacher stepped forward and threw a standing punch, ugly, almost stumbling forward, and Mira pivoted and grabbed and pulled over and through her hips and her teacher…flipped all the way forward and landed on her feet.  Mira forgot to let go until her teacher tapped Mira’s hands.

“Good.  Very good.  I don’t expect you, or anyone you should be fighting, to land on their feet, but other than that I can assure you I am holding back.  I have not been using my full strength, or my full speed, any more than you could expect from any other opponent.  But mark me: combat is fast .  The better you are, the faster it will be.  Without anything more than training, dedication, and natural human talent, a person can throw a punch faster than the eye can see.  I intend for you to reach your full potential, whatever that may be.  You may not reach it during our time together, but the foundation for it will be laid.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sensei.”

“Good.”  Her teacher walked back to her ready position and settled into her stance.

“Again.”

****

It wore thin, and quickly, the constant criticisms.  And still it went on, for days, a week.

“Wrong.  Again.”

“You’re dead.  Again.”

“Unconscious and captured.  Again.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Were you even listening when I explained this exercise?”

“Unacceptable.”

It didn’t help that many of these lessons were physically painful as well.  Her teacher never struck her, not even a light tap that Mira might have expected from one of the Sister Warriors back home, but Mira often found herself on her back staring up at the sky, or face down in the dirt.  Roots and stones were equally unforgiving, and her collection of bruises was growing faster than she could heal them.  Her teacher seemed unconcerned, though she did offer her some oil to rub on the bruises at night.  It helped, some.

In an effort to limit further pain, at least for the time being, Mira’s teacher had shifted to focus on more defensive maneuvers.  Blocking, dodging, holds, throws that used the opponent's momentum.  If Mira messed up, at least her teacher would stop short of hitting her, and less chance of falling or being thrown, and so less chance of physical pain.  Emotional pain, on the other hand, was still very much part of the process.

Her teacher’s hand moved fast, but not too fast to see, not so fast Mira had any excuse, and then it was at her neck.  “If I had a knife, you would be dead.”  Her tone added other words that Mira heard in her mind, even if her teacher didn’t bother to say them aloud.  “Pathetic.  Unacceptable.  Useless.  A failure.  Again.  Is this all you are, is this all you have to offer?  I should have left you to the Shining Ones.  What good is a student who can’t learn?”

“I’m sorry,” Mira muttered.

“I’m sorry too.  Not as sorry as if you take a knife through the carotid artery, though.  Nor are you as sorry as you would be in that situation.  Sorry, by the way, implies regret, and a desire to change.  You need to apply yourself.  Were you even paying attention when I–”

“I’m sorry that I’m not good enough for you!”  Her teacher looked up suddenly, eyes wide.  “I’m sorry that nothing is ever good enough for you!!!  I’m sorry that I ever met you!!!! ”

Mira caught her breath and wiped her tears, out of necessity if nothing else.  Her teacher had gone rigid, almost to the point that it looked like she had stopped breathing.  Her eyes were unblinking.  Mira knew danger when she recognized it.  She couldn’t fight, or run, so she stilled herself.  Made herself unthreatening.  Hoped the danger would pass without too much pain.  She shut her eyes.

Seconds passed.  A minute, maybe.

Mira didn’t open her eyes.  “Are you going to hit me?”

There was no immediate response, but also no pain, so Mira counted that as promising.

“Of course I’m not going to…why would you think that.”

Mira opened one of her eyes and, seeing her teacher hadn’t moved or changed expression, opened her other eye and shrugged.  “Some other students at the Cradle, older kids, came from training journeys and said their teachers hit them when they didn’t obey right.  I figured that shouting at you probably counted.”  

Her teacher’s jaw clenched and her lips twitched.  “Mira.  I want you to listen to me very closely.  I promise that I will never lay a hand on you with the intent to cause harm.  Ever.  Do you understand?”  Mira nodded.  “I will always…”  Her teacher paused a moment and looked away, then back at Mira.  “We do not live in a safe world.  But I promise that you will never be safer anywhere than when you are with me, and I will always do everything in my power to ensure that you live a long, happy life.  Do you understand?”  Mira nodded again, and wondered if nodding counted as a lie if you didn’t believe it.   

The Heretic nodded.  “We’re done training for the day.”  

They ate dinner that night in silence.  It was Mira’s birthday.

****

“Wait here,” Mira’s teacher instructed her the next morning.  “Here” was a large rock, one of many that lined a wide creek, fifteen or twenty meters across.  The Heretic strode out into the water, her leggings rolled up near her knees and her boots and socks left by the water’s edge.  There she pulled out her extendible spear, a weapon of divinium, made for slaying demons and Angels alike…and used it to spear a fish and toss it behind her to a space where she had constructed a small, high-walled, makeshift enclosure of stones.

The stream water was loud.  The Heretic’s back was to her.  Mira didn’t hesitate.  The rocks would reveal no trail even to her teacher’s experienced eye.  She grabbed some of the dried provisions, put them in her pack, and began to run.

By the path of the sun, Mira doubted she made it even half an hour before the Heretic caught her.

“What are you doing?!”  The woman’s voice brought Mira to a stop, and she squeezed her eyes tightly, anticipating the scolding, and maybe punishment, to come.  “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to run off like that?”

Mira turned and saw the Heretic, eyes wild, breathing heavily, and hung her head.  “I figured you would be better off.  Whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re going, I’m slowing you down.  I’m not learning fast enough, so even if you wanted a student, I’m pretty sure you can find better.  I thought I could just head back to the Cradle.  Maybe most of the people are back by now.”

Once more, the Heretic paused, though this time Mira watched her.  Mira thought she looked like she was in pain.

“I’m sorry.”  Her voice trembled.

Mira blinked, startled.  “What?”

“I’m sorry.  I’ve been unkind, and I will do better.  Please.  Please come with me.  I can’t…please.”  She sounded scared, and Mira didn’t know what to think about that, about this invincible warrior sounding scared, but it made Mira scared too.

“OK.”

Back at the creek, Mira’s teacher gutted and prepared four fish, then cooked them on a flat rock over a small flame.  When the fish were ready, the two of them ate, and Mira’s teacher began to speak.

“I was not raised well.  Until I was years older than you are now, I was made to believe that I was worthless.  That I needed to prove my value to deserve love.  I became skilled at so many things in the hope that one day they, my parents, would realize I was worthy.  And even when they sent me away, even when I left them behind for the Church, for the life of a Sister Warrior, I still lived that way.  I needed to excel, at everything.  It wasn’t until…”

She paused and ducked her head for a moment.

“It took me some time to realize I was worth more than what I could do for others.  But I have been told, more than once, that I have a tendency to hold others to those standards.  I’ve been unfair to people I cared for.  I’ve been unfair to you.”

Mira’s teacher looked back up.

“The most important thing to me in the world right now is that you survive.  I won’t always be around to protect you, so that means I need to train you to defend yourself.  But I don’t…I won’t fall into bad habits.  I’ll do better.  I promise.

Her teacher paused for a moment.  “I would like it if we could start again.”  The Heretic extended her hand.  “My name is Beatrice.”

Chapter Text

Fire Team Echo failed to respond to short-wave radio signals during reconnaissance mission on the outskirts of Marseilles.  We investigated to determine if FOB was potentially compromised, and to recover survivors.  All materiel recovered.  Uniforms and armor unsalvageable.  No corpses observed at the site.  Blood quantities consistent with 100% of Fire Team Echo KIA.  Squad Leader Lambert’s prosthetic leg was recovered 30m from the furthest blood spatter.  Prosthetic was bent approximately 50 degrees at the center, with what appeared to be teeth marks through the metal.  Following discussion, Private Martine deserted for the purpose of searching for survivors.  As of 14 hours later, he has not returned.

Recovered portion of field report of Sergeant First Class Aurelia Hernandez, 3rd Allied Legion, date unknown, estimated 5 years Before the Fall

“Stop.”

Mira paused in a ready stance.  She knew something was off with the kick she had just executed.

“May I?”  Her teacher, Beatrice, offered her hands.

Mira nodded.  Beatrice gestured for her to extend her foot again.  When Mira did, Beatrice took the foot and raised it higher, then pulled it further away from Mira’s center of gravity, far enough that, at first Mira thought she might fall.  But Beatrice held her steady.

“You should be aiming to extend this far, alright?  Foot flat like so.”  Beatrice adjusted Mira’s foot so that the sole was perpendicular to the ground.  “Do you feel that?”  When Mira nodded, Beatrice slowly walked Mira’s foot forward until she found her balance again, then let Mira slowly bring her foot back to the ground.  “And the way you counterbalance that extension is by leaning back slightly, like so.  Lean.”  Beatrice took up position behind Mira, and Mira leaned back until she felt Beatrice’s hands holding her up.  “Now that I’m here to catch you, kick again.”

Mira kicked, and if Beatrice had not been behind her, she was sure she would have fallen again.  “That’s good.  Good extension.  Now you just need to find your balance.  Try again.  You’re close.”

Mira nodded and set her feet, then tried again.  Wobbly, but she didn’t think she would have fallen.  Twice more, same result.  Then once more after, and this time she barely felt Beatrice’s hands behind her.  “Perfect.  Two more times with me behind you, then you can try on a live target.”

“A live target?”

“Me.”  Mira thought she liked the sound of that.  She lost her balance when resetting on the next kick, but did the next three perfectly, which earned her the right to kick Beatrice.

“Are you sure you’ll be OK?  This isn’t…you’re not going to get hurt and just act like you’re OK or something, right?”

Beatrice smirked.  “No.  I’ll be fine.  As hard as you can, please.”

Mira was unconvinced, but settled into her stance anyway.  She kicked hard enough that Beatrice stumbled back several steps and rubbed her chest.

“Good.  Very good.  A few more, please.  I want you to get used to the feeling of connecting with this.”

Beatrice suggested a few minor adjustments as they went, then paused after six.  “The next one is going to feel different.  Don’t change the kick at all, but try to keep your balance after.”

Mira narrowed her eyes, but did as she was told.  The kick landed squarely in her teacher’s gut, but Beatrice didn’t stumble, didn’t move at all, so that Mira ended up pushing herself back with only one foot on the ground.  She had no idea how she was supposed to keep her balance like that, so she pivoted as she fell and rolled away from Beatrice, coming back up in a fighting stance.

“Well done!”  Beatrice was beaming.  “Excellent improvisation.  One thing to change: if you ever kick someone like that, and they don’t move, your best case scenario is that they’re wraith-ridden, and you should run, at least until you’re old enough to have developed some more muscle.”

Mira cocked her head to the side.  “But wouldn’t I be able to just see the wraith before I kick the person?  Why would I kick them at all if I knew they were wraith-ridden?”

Now her teacher looked puzzled.  “You…I would have thought Mary would have explained this to you, or someone would.  Wraith-ridden may from time to time exhibit blackened eyes, but wraiths are otherwise invisible.  You won’t know until you gauge your enemy’s–”

“They’re not invisible.  I saw them.”

Beatrice’s mouth was hanging open mid-sentence.  It stayed that way for several seconds.  “What do you mean, ‘you saw them?’”

Mira felt her shoulders begin to hunch.  “When you first found me, the three people you killed.  I could see the wraiths.”

Beatrice stared.  “That’s not possible.”

Mira dropped her eyes to the ground.

“Describe them.”

“They looked like red mist, but with red skulls.  The mist sort of billowed out of them, but the skulls mostly stayed inside the people.”  Mira frowned.  “If you couldn’t see the wraiths, then how did you–”

“Turn around.  Lift your shirt up.”

Her teacher’s tone made it clear she was not asking, so Mira did as she was told.  She felt her teacher’s hands probing the middle of her upper back in a more or less circular pattern around her spine.

“What are you doing?” Mira asked.

“You don’t have a Halo.  I had to be sure.  You can put your shirt down now.”  She removed her hand and stepped away.

Mira pulled down her shirt and turned.  “Wouldn’t a Halo light up…”  She gestured vaguely at her teacher, covered in divinium weapons and what Mira still presumed were divinium tattoos.

Beatrice nodded.  “It would.  It shouldn’t be possible for a Halo to be this close without reacting to the divinium.  But it also shouldn’t be possible for you to see wraiths without a Halo.  I’ve only known one other human other than a Halobearer who could do that, and what she experienced to receive that power is…unique, to my knowledge.”  Beatrice sat down on a nearby log and pulled out a waterskin.

Mira joined her.  “But if you couldn’t see the wraiths, how did you kill the first one so easily?  You grabbed the wraith, not the person.”

Beatrice shrugged.  “I’ve been doing this for over twenty years now.  I’ve a fairly good sense of how they move, how they’re put together.  And the chain and blade is very useful for catching them out of the air, even when I can’t see them.  Then it’s just a matter of pulling them close and making a rough guess where the head is, or feeling around for it if I miss.”  She handed the waterskin to Mira.  “Drink up.  With any luck, we’ll reach old Lyon by tomorrow afternoon.”

****

As it happened, they did not have any luck, and sheltered under a hawthorn bush just before the downpour began mid-morning.

They sat for a while, listening to the endless sound of the gray curtain over the trees around them, drowning out the green.

“It feels weird for me to call you Beatrice.”

Her teacher snorted.  “I noticed.”

“Is there, like…I don’t know, it feels off, like there should be something in front of your name.  Isn’t it supposed to be ‘Sister Beatrice,’ or…?”

Beatrice shook her head.  “Not a Sister.  Not for a long time.  Just Beatrice.”

“So what else do I call you, if I have to?  Miss Beatrice?”

Mira’s teacher scoffed.  “Didn’t Mary teach you any manners?  How to mind your elders?”

Mira rolled her eyes.

“You can call me mum.”

Mira wrinkled her nose.  “Really?  Are you a Holy Mother too?  Because even Mother didn’t ask people to–”

Beatrice buried her head in her hands.  “I can’t believe you learned English from an American.  Mum.  As Mary would say it, may-yum .”

Mira snorted trying to hold in a laugh.  “Wait.  You mean ma’am?  Like M-A-apostrophe-A-M?”

Beatrice muttered a few words under her breath, but all Mira caught above the sound of the heavy rain was “disgraceful.”

****

The rain let up late afternoon.  They continued on their way until nightfall, then began again the next day.  More and more as they traveled, they encountered breaks in the forest, sometimes husks of old buildings, homes mostly, though once a large field of concrete where only scattered vegetation had managed to push through, and where the faded colors of giant letters still hung to the remaining walls of various buildings.  

More and more they encountered the remnants of old roadways.  Most of these were cracked and pebbled black stone, so worn by the elements and the inexorable progress of various plants that they hardly interrupted the flora.  But as the frequency of the old stone increased, they started to encounter larger stretches of road as well, mostly intact.  A bridge only half collapsed, though Beatrice insisted on going around: “Never let yourself be caught in the open like that if you can avoid it.  The safety is worth the delay.”

Eventually, they crested a hill over which Mira saw buildings so large and densely packed that she would not have believed it if not for images in old books.  The scale of it, in person, seemed so much larger.  For kilometers the buildings stretched, in either direction, nearly uniform pinkish-orange slanted roofs topping mostly pale buildings.  Scattered through these were a handful of larger, drabber buildings, grey and squat, as well as some more ornate, with dark domes and pale crests.  At a glance, no building looked wholly intact; shattered windows, collapsed walls, holes in the domes.  Fires had swept through more than one section of the city over the years, leaving blackened scars across the cityscape.  Here and there she could see a river on the other side through gaps in the buildings, stretching left and right as far as the eye could see, with another arm, or perhaps another river, stretching off into the distance ahead of them and to the left.

Starkest among the damaged buildings were three enormous towers in the city center, spread like fingers reaching from the ground.  One, rectangular, was the most broken; though by far the shortest of the three now, it was clear that the top of it had been ripped off at some point in the past, and its skeleton spilled out above the remaining windows.  The middle tower was rounded and appeared to be made largely of red stone, with what appeared to be a black pyramid at its peak; in fact, the blackness ran down the sides irregularly, and appeared shot through with splotches of crimson.  The building as a whole appeared oddly intact.  It was flanked on the other side by a large rectangular building, the top of which had partially collapsed, such that a great spire of unhealthy metal and glass rose on its left dozens of meters above the remains on its right.

“Welcome to old Lyon.”

Mira swallowed.  “Are we…are we going there?”

“No.  Bandits, wraith-ridden or otherwise, will infest places like this, cities that refused to bend to Reya, or weren’t valuable enough for her to seize or hold in the end.”  Beatrice turned around and began to walk back the way they came.  “We’ll get out of sight of the towers, then make camp.  We’ll continue south tomorrow.  The bridges are too risky, but there’s a ferry I’ve used before to cross the Rhone safely.  Come.”

****

Beatrice killed a deer for dinner.  After they ate, Beatrice invited Mira to sit by the fire, a ruined home behind them shielding the firelight from the city.  “No sparring or forms to start.  Tonight I teach you how to kill wraiths.”  Mira sat up attentively.  “First, word of warning.  You should avoid wraith-ridden whenever possible.  They are stronger than you and faster than you, and even one will most likely kill you if you fight it alone.  The ideal way to fight them is in a group, with divinium weapons, and a spotter.  That was always a Halobearer in my time, but the fact that you can see them means you can fill that role as well.”

Beatrice took out a dagger in a sheath and held it out to Mira, handle first.  “This is divinium.  If you stab the wraith’s mist-form with this, you will kill it.  When you are older, or working with a team, the ideal is to force the wraith from its host by hurting the host body enough that the wraith abandons it and can be killed without killing the host.  You will not have that luxury.  If you see a wraith-ridden, and you cannot run, stab to kill.”

Mira turned the knife in her hands, and did not unsheathe it.  “I don’t know what passes for normal where you’re from, but I’ve never killed anyone before.”

Beatrice nodded and pursed her lips.  “I understand.  And I hope this will be unnecessary.  But you should not assume that the only risk is from people.”

Mira frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“I’ve yet to see it as far west as your Cradle, but it has been happening more and more in recent years.  I can only speculate as to the reasons.  Some wraiths have come here deliberately, hoping to join the fight against Reya.  Some have been forced here.  Those that are here are as vulnerable to despair as any person, or so I’ve heard.  Perhaps it’s tempting, to give up, to live free from the pressures of the War.  To live a simpler life.  But I’m not aware of any other animals that can sustain a wraith’s consciousness like a human.”

Beatrice paused and stared at nothing for a moment.  “They are extremely dangerous.  As far as I’m aware, no wraith has ever abandoned an animal host, not under any circumstances.  I have never seen or heard of one communicating beyond what one might usually expect from the host animal.  If anything, they seem less intelligent, more bloodthirsty.  But strong, stronger even than a wraith-ridden with a human host.  If you see a wraith-ridden animal, you call it out to me, and run if you can.  I’ll find you.  If you end up cornered by one, or don’t think you can outrun it, go for the neck.  Do you understand?”

Mira nodded.

“Good.”  Beatrice stood and pulled the deer carcass closer to the fire.  “It takes force to drive a blade through muscle.  You’ll need practice.”

****

Mira’s first impression of the ferryman was poor.  “Ma’am?  Why does he look like that?” she whispered as they stood a few dozen meters away and watched the man stare down at the water.  His skin was weathered, his beard and hair pale and tangled.  His clothes were torn and tattered.  It looked like he had eaten little for some time, and bathed less despite the river at his feet.  Off to the left was a ramshackle log cabin that looked like the man might have built it himself, and with exactly as much skill as his appearance suggested.  No other structures accompanied it, though grey stone set in low rectangular shapes suggested that some may have once stood here.  There were almost no structures, even ruined ones, within 50 meters of the river.

Beatrice shrugged.  She had found and killed another deer that morning, and had it slung across her shoulders.  “Tomas has been through a lot.  When you lose people, when you’re alone, when you’re in pain, sometimes your priorities start to look different.  But he’s manned this ferry for years now.  He knows the river.  And he’s reliable.”  She stood and began her approach.

“Tomas,” she said, loud enough to be heard, though quietly enough, Mira presumed, that the man wouldn’t be startled.

The man didn’t turn.  “Back again?”

Mira slowly followed her teacher.

Beatrice nodded.  “Back again.  I have another passenger with me.”

Tomas nodded, but still didn’t turn.  “New student, then?  Good luck to both of you.  Fare’s higher with two.”

Beatrice set the deer carcass to the ground.  “Fresh meat.”  She removed a satchel from over her shoulder with some weapons she had taken from the corpses of the wraith-ridden from whom she had saved Mira when they first met and showed it to the man, then slung it back over her shoulder.  “And fresh metal.”

He turned slowly and looked at the deer carcass.  “Everything’s gotta eat.”  He looked up at Beatrice blankly.  “Do you ever pray, sister?”

Beatrice stared back for several seconds.  “Not in a long time.  Nor would I recommend it.”

He nodded calmly and walked over to a wooden structure that, at first, Mira mistook for a dock, longer than it was wide, made of wooden planks with railings on the side.  It took Mira a moment to notice the rope running from a fixture at the top of the cabin all the way across the river.  The structure, the ferry, had a pole in the center with a series of wheels on it that the rope was threaded through.  “Come on, then.”

Once Mira and her teacher were aboard, the man started to pull the rope.  Mira thought there must be some muscle hidden beneath the man’s rags, or perhaps the system of wheels was contrived to make the journey easier, because slowly but surely the ferry began to move across the river.

Mira looked over the side; she had never seen a river this size before, much less crossed one.  The water was fairly clear, on the surface at least, so that she could see all manner of fish darting to and fro, and wondered if a wraith had ever thought to join them.  

****

As they approached the other side, Mira saw that the other end of the rope was wrapped around a large gnarled oak a few dozen meters back from the riverbank, right where the trunk split. The tree’s leaves were vibrant green, dulled slightly through the drizzle that began to fall when they were partway across the river.  A scattering of pale stones dusted the area beneath the tree's canopy.

Mira lurched forward as the ferry collided more or less gently with the shore.  Beatrice had offered her a spare cloak for the rain, and if Mira didn’t like the thought that she might have watched her teacher kill the prior owner, she was glad to keep the rain out of her eyes and avoid the worst of the damp.  They disembarked, and Beatrice set the weapons down on the ferry.  “I assume you’ll be taking them back over?”  There was no house on this side of the river, not that Mira could see, and the ruined buildings kept their distance from the water on this side too.

Tomas nodded, and moved the satchel with the weapons to the center of the ferry. Beatrice stepped away from the ferry and began to survey the surroundings.  Mira didn’t understand why they didn’t just follow the river east; she had seen that the Rhone split that direction as they made their approach that morning.  She decided to wait until Tomas was out of earshot.

A loud creaking sound came from behind them.  “Madame?”

Beatrice and Mira both turned.  Tomas had pushed the ferry back out to the river, and the current was slowly pulling it back towards the other side.  He was not on it.  Instead, he was kneeling, staring past them with a somber look on his face.  “I’m afraid I do recommend prayer.”  Then he leaned forward and pressed his face to the dirt.

When Mira turned back, away from the river, the first thing she noticed was the wisp of crimson that peeked out from the oak tree.  It was followed by the head of a large wolf, the color of charcoal, and then another, and another.  There were six of them, in various shades of gray, and huge to Mira’s eyes, but all outlined in dancing tendrils of red.

“Wraiths, all of them,” she whispered, and pulled out the dagger she had been gifted the night before.

Beatrice unshouldered her pack, and her chain and blade, as the wolves nipped at each other.  One pulled a larger rock from beneath the oak with its teeth and tossed it playfully to one of its fellows, so that Mira could see it was a human skull as it tumbled through the air.  The other wolf caught the skull in its mouth and casually crushed it into shards and dust.  They loped forward a bit more, then most of them broke off at an angle, one way or the other, towards the river.  There was nowhere to run.

“So we’re fighting?”  Mira was proud that her voice barely trembled.

Her teacher didn’t turn around as she pulled out her rod and extended it into a spear.  “I’m fighting.  You’re swimming.”  Beatrice settled into her stance, the spear extended up and slightly forward.  “Go.”

Mira turned and ran.  She heard a series of snarls behind her, then a whimper as she neared the river’s edge.  She thought, or hoped, that Tomas would remain with his face down in the muddy riverbank in grim supplication, but he reached out to snag her ankle as she passed.  “You must stay!  Please!  You must become one with them!  They will take your flesh and make you anew!”  She fell, and was thankful her teacher had gone over how to fight from a prone position.  She pushed herself up enough to swing her foot in an arc that broke against Tomas’ nose, then scrambled into the water.  

It was colder than she expected, and the current stronger, but she had gone in upstream and the ferry hadn’t gone far yet.  So she swam.

Her muscles were aching by the time she pulled herself onto the ferry, shivering.  She imagined how things might be going behind her.  Perhaps Beatrice had dispatched them all and was simply waiting for Mira to turn around.  Or perhaps things were going more poorly, now that she was the one ambushed.  Perhaps she was already dead, and her corpse was being divided up beneath the oak tree.

Mira squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and turned.

Neither her greatest hope nor worst fear were realized.  Two of the wolves lay still on either side of Mira’s teacher, one with the spear sticking out of its throat at a high angle.  One was nursing its left forepaw, grotesquely bent, and was limping slowly away.  The other three were circling Beatrice from just over a meter away, darting in and out.  Beatrice was bleeding from a bite on her right leg just above the knee, another on her left arm, and another gash across her forehead that Mira only saw when Beatrice turned to try to keep an eye on each of the remaining wolves.

When Beatrice turned, one of the wolves ended up in her blind spot and moved forward, its teeth bared.  She turned back instantly, as Mira recognized a feint for use when fighting multiple opponents, then Beatrice brought the edge of her palm against the wolf’s neck with enough force that Mira heard the crack, even at a distance of some 40 meters.  The wolf collapsed and stopped moving, though the wraith didn’t leave the body.

Even as Beatrice struck that wolf, though, the other two closed in, and Mira fought the urge to disobey her teacher’s command, trying to envision a scenario in which her leaping into the water and swimming back led to a different, better outcome.  One wolf leapt in and bit down on Beatrice’s left hand, the other on her right hamstring.  Beatrice cried out, but wrapped her bitten left hand around the jaw of the first wolf and yanked down hard , and the jaw snapped at a right angle and hung loosely from the wolf’s cheeks.  She swung with her other hand at the wolf to her right, but it dodged out of the way.  The wolf with the broken jaw pawed at it uselessly and nuzzled into the wet earth, though to what end Mira was unsure. 

Beatrice stood facing the only uninjured wolf, then took off in the other direction.  The wolf gave chase as Beatrice reached down and in one smooth motion grabbed the end of the chain she had left.  She continued running, and the chain uncoiled as she did and it followed her, until she flicked her wrist behind her.  The motion traveled down the length of the chain until it reached the blade, which leapt from the ground and pierced the pursuing wolf through the throat.  

The immediate danger over, Beatrice pulled her spear from the body of one of the wolves and went from one to the next, piercing each through the back of the neck.  The first two wolves received the blade with no fanfare, but the one still writhing with a broken jaw let out a burst of red mist that rapidly dissipated.  The one whose neck had been snapped did the same.  By the time Beatrice made her way to the third, the wraith appeared to be leaking from the wolf, though with a flurry of activity that had the vaguely futile feel of pulling on wet grass.  When Beatrice stabbed, that wraith too burst and washed away in the soft rain, and all five corpses lay still.

Wait.

“MIRA!!!”

Mira felt the ferry rock as her teacher screamed.  She reached for her knife with her right hand as she turned, but even with one bad leg the wraith-ridden was faster than she was.  It leaped and pinned her to the ferry on her back with its right forepaw on her chest.  She brought the knife around in an arc with as much force as she could muster, but the wolf bit into her forearm and the knife clattered beside her head.  The wolf let out a yelp as its forepaw slipped, and Mira was glad of the rain for the first time all morning.  She reached across herself with her left hand, grabbed the knife, and stabbed it backhanded into the wolf’s neck as the ferry rocked and the wolf slipped again.  A red curtain slipped over the world for a moment, followed promptly by an enormous weight on her chest.  Mira thought she would just lay there for a moment before trying to get out from under the corpse.

“Well done.”  Mira turned her head and saw her teacher, wide-eyed with water spilling off of her, standing off to her left.  

Mira looked at Beatrice, then as best she could at the shore behind her, though she couldn’t quite turn her head in that direction with the wolf’s corpse on top of her still.  Even only able to look at an angle, she was certain there was no way anyone could swim that far, that fast.  

“How?”

Beatrice grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck and, with one hand, hurled it into the river.  “I jumped.”  She held out her hand.  Mira started to grab for it with her right before the pain stopped her. 

Beatrice bent down and lifted her upright, then knelt to take a look at the arm.  “We’ll need to get a poultice on this back at shore to avoid infection.”  She looked up at Mira.  “I’m glad you’re alright.”  

When they made it back to shore, Tomas was kneeling over one of the corpses, weeping.

Chapter Text

Triangulation was made possible by reported and suspected sightings and areas of otherwise unexplainable activity.  Recognizing that certain presumptions are made in this analysis concerning present and recent past alliance structures and capabilities, I am reasonably confident that the target can be located to within a 75 kilometer radius, and further precision can be attained with concentration of efforts in that area.  Consistent with previous directives, we will not engage if target is located and will await further instructions.  Additional details, including geographical and demographic features of note, will be relayed by courier; I have concerns that this frequency may not be secure.

Intercepted transmission, Protectorate Alpine Listening Post 4, 3 March 13 A.F.

It was another four days of travel over uneven terrain before they reached the village.  Mira saw the smoke from the chimneys long before she saw the buildings.  “Raiding party?” she had asked.

Her teacher had smiled at her.  “No.  Home.”

It was separated from the surrounding fields by what appeared to be a wooden wall perhaps six meters high.  A handful of guards with bows walked along the palisade inside, keeping watch.  The guard at the gate greeted Beatrice with a hug and Mira with a nod and a smile.  Inside, the village itself looked to have been newly-built, presumably on the ruins of the old.  The buildings were dark wood, with stone chimneys.  Mira could hear the rush of water, probably a tributary from the Rhone, in the distance, and thought she saw a river dock at the end of the main street that led through the town.

Halfway through the town, there was a concrete building, old construction with patches here and there in brick or wood; Beatrice led them to it.  Inside was a meeting hall, or group dining area perhaps, not unlike what Mira was used to back home.  It was nearly empty of people, though Mira could hear noise in the back, presumably someone in the kitchen, milling about.  The only occupant of the main hall was a woman, sharp featured, tall, even sitting down, with long brown hair in a ponytail, light skin, and the most elaborately patterned yellow dress that Mira had ever seen, with black pants underneath, sitting at a far table and looking over some papers.  She was sitting at a long table with long benches attached to either side.

“I told you Horace,” the woman said without looking up, “no early lunches just because you…”  When she finally looked up, her jaw dropped, then rapidly curled into a grin.  “HANS!” she called to the back as she stood and ran towards them.

The woman wrapped Beatrice in her arms.  Up close, the woman was maybe a hand taller than Mira’s teacher.  “Good to see you,” she whispered.

A man, presumably Hans, came from the back, tall and light skinned, but tan, with a thick sandy brown mustache and a thin beard.  “What's going on, where's the–”  He too broke into a smile as he saw Beatrice and walked briskly over.  “Boss,” he said softly, and offered a hug of his own as the woman stepped back.

Mira stood a few steps back and took in the scene.  It wasn't that she assumed that her teacher was a friendless curmudgeon, she just hadn't seen anything to suggest otherwise until now.  Two weeks of evasive answers and frequent silences, plus a week of harsh teaching, and Mira would have guessed that Beatrice had no one in her life and maybe preferred it that way.  Yet here were two people who offered affection and received it in return.  She felt a bit nauseous, and suddenly wished she was somewhere else.

The woman turned from Beatrice to Mira and cocked her head.  “And who is this?”  She took a few long strides and held out her hand.  “I'm Chanel.  Nice to meet you…?”

Mira was uncomfortable, but she knew her manners.  Mother had made sure of it.  She took Chanel's hand.  “I'm Mira.  Nice to meet you, Ms. Chanel.”

Chanel's eyes widened for a second.  “A pleasure, Mira.  What a beautiful name.”  She turned to Beatrice.  “This is your–”

“My student, for the time being.”

“I see.”  She turned back to Mira and pursed her lips.  “Well, Mira, I hope you’ll feel at home here as long as you’re with us.  Welcome to Espoir.”

****

Hans walked her around the town, which had a number of amenities Mira had only read about in books, or heard about in Mother’s stories.  A series of water wheels and a smattering of salvaged solar panels provided a small amount of electricity, enough for powering some old digital libraries and communication devices and, apparently, an old walk-in refrigeration unit that they had managed to keep running.  Everyone seemed friendly enough, but something about this place made Mira uncomfortable.  

They all seemed so…calm wasn’t the right word.  Neither was relaxed.  Or happy.  But there were no training grounds.  No Sister Warriors that she could see, nor even a chapel.  Did the guards along the walls even know how to use those bows?  She couldn’t even imagine the Tyrant’s forces attacking a place like this.  Why would they bother?

Hans nudged her.  He had been talking, but she hadn’t been paying attention.  Something about some traveling merchants who had set up shop in the village square?  “That’s Francois,” he said pointing to one of the guards in her sightline.  He looked out of place, maybe young enough that this was his first season taking a turn on the wall.  “I could introduce you to him?  Some of the others around your age?”  Mira shook her head.  “Ah, maybe you want to get in some target practice?”

She shook her head again.  “I’m better in close.  You said there was a library?”

He helped her find and borrow Brother Carlo’s Commentaries ; Mira had wanted to read it ever since Nadia mentioned it, but then the attack came, and then Beatrice, and she hadn’t thought she’d get the chance again any time soon.  He walked her back to the main hall, and put his hand on her shoulder in a way she thought he meant to be friendly.  “I have to get back to work now, but your, uh, your teacher should still be inside talking to Chanel.  Maybe we can have you over for dinner sometime?”  He patted her awkwardly on the back and made his way through the hall to the back rooms.

Beatrice and Chanel were seated opposite each other on benches on either side of a long table some distance from the door, talking in tones they thought were quiet, the way grown-ups did when they didn’t want to be heard but had forgotten how to whisper properly.  Maybe when you grew up you forgot how quietly you needed to whisper not to be heard, when you weren’t used to people trying to hide things from you right in front of your face.  Or maybe when you got old you just couldn’t hear that well anymore, so you couldn’t whisper.  Mira didn’t want to think about that too much, or the possibility that someday she wouldn’t be able to hear whispers.

“She was supposed to stay quiet.  This is not quiet,” Beatrice said, and she too was not quiet.

“She didn’t exactly ask my permission.  It’ll be fine, she’ll be back before you get there.  She always comes back.”  Chanel looked over her shoulder at Mira; Beatrice had sat down facing the door.  “Does she know?”

Beatrice looked at Mira as she spoke.  “No.  I’m waiting until we’re all together.”

“Mmm.  You know you’re a shit liar?”

Beatrice chuckled.  “I’ve been told.”

Chanel shook her head.  “She’s going to be pissed.”

Beatrice shrugged.  “Always makes for an interesting reunion.”

Chanel laughed loudly and stood.  “Fine, fine, have it your way.  Don’t be a stranger while you’re here, alright?  Bring her by for dinner.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes, but a small smile robbed it of any heat.  She and Chanel exchanged hugs.  “In this life.”

“In this life,” Chanel answered, and handed her a small wooden box.

Beatrice nodded towards the door as she walked past, and Mira followed.

****

It turned out that Beatrice’s house was not inside the walls at all, because nothing about Beatrice could be easy.  They followed a dirt road past fields of broccoli and arugula and leeks ready for harvest, and others where planting had already begun for the next season.  As they made their way higher in the foothills, they came across more than one shepherd grazing a flock, until the fields gave way again to woods, and then to a cabin by a pond.  A faded green shed stood off to the side, near a stump covered in score marks that looked like it was for chopping wood.

“Welcome home,” Beatrice said as she led Mira inside.

The cabin was larger than Mira would have expected.  The front door opened into a large room, with a fireplace and a fair amount of old furniture.  The walls were lined with bookshelves.  Stairs led up to a second level.  “Hopefully Rania came by while I was away.  If she didn’t, and the roof leaks, tell me and I’ll set you up down here.  Bedrooms are on the second floor.  Through that door,” she pointed to the back of the room, “is the kitchen.  I have some extra clothes upstairs if you want to get changed.  If they don’t fit, Chanel will fight the seamstress for the chance to alter them.  There’s some soap and towels in the upstairs closet if you want to wash off in the pond first.”

Mira nodded and made her way upstairs.  The first door had a board with her name written on it in chalk, the script too precise for the roughness of dust on wood.  Inside everything looked well-kept, except for a small amount of dust.  A bed more than big enough for her, a chest of drawers, and a bookshelf.  Some of the books were familiar to her, but many were not, and those were worn, spines cracked and pages yellowed with age and use.

Mira checked the drawers for clothing and found a loose green sweater in the top drawer that looked only a little too large for her, but she could make due.  The second drawer had similarly sized pants, the third undergarments and socks, and the last one a mix of different pieces, all of which were noticeably too small for her.  She picked out an outfit, shut the drawers, and went to bathe for the first time in two weeks.

When she finished, and was clean and changed, she went downstairs, her hair still wrapped in a towel.  “What’s that smell?” she asked, as she followed it into the kitchen.

Beatrice was tending to a pan over the wood stove.  “Your birthday present.”

Mira felt her throat tighten.  She hadn’t really expected anything of the day when it came and went about a week past.  In fact, it had been probably the most miserable birthday she could recall, to the point that she had tried hard not to think of the fact that it was her birthday.  “How did you know when my birthday was?”

Beatrice’s hand stopped mid-stir, then continued.  “I’m sorry we didn’t celebrate properly on the day.  I was … unpleasant company that day.  But I also did not have this in hand yet.”

Mira came over to look at the delicious smelling brown liquid Beatrice was stirring over the fire of the stove.  “What is it?”

Beatrice poured each of them a tall mug.  It steamed pleasantly as Beatrice handed Mira one.  “This is hot chocolate.”

Mira gasped softly.  The Holy Mother liked to complain from time to time about the things lost in the Old World, the simple pleasures that humanity would never have again while the Tyrant reigned over the world, and chocolate was near the top of that list.  “Where did you get this?”

Beatrice shrugged.  “I know someone who moves around a lot.  Someone very dear to me.  I asked her to get me some before I returned, and to leave it with Chanel.  It doesn’t grow in Europe, but…”  Beatrice trailed off, and Mira couldn’t help but think about the very small number of people, or legends, who, to her knowledge, could travel so quickly.

Mira brought the mug to her lips.  “It’s so good.”  She tried to pace herself as the liquid burned her tongue, but it was maybe the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.  

“Easy,” admonished Beatrice.  “Go slow.  Plenty where that came from.”

Mira listened, and tried to focus on small sips, savoring the flavor.  “Can we take a look around?  I didn’t recognize a lot of the books upstairs.”

Beatrice nodded and stood.  “Of course.  I picked out the ones I thought you might like the best for your room, but feel free to read whatever you find that catches your eye.”

And so Mira wandered back and forth in front of the bookshelves, hot chocolate in hand, while Beatrice took a seat with her own mug on the couch in front of the fireplace.

“Who’s that?”  Mira pointed to a picture, a photograph, of a young Beatrice side-by-side with another young woman.  Beatrice was smiling, but the other woman’s smile dominated the photo.  Aside from a radiant smile, the woman had short, straight brown hair cut above her neck, light skin, deep brown eyes, and looked to be a few inches shorter than Beatrice.

Beatrice didn't answer for a moment.  “Someone I love very much.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Why?”  When Mira turned, Beatrice looked confused.

“Oh, I just, sorry, you sounded sad like…”

Beatrice smiled softly.  “It's alright.  She's alive, I just haven't seen her in a while.  I miss her very much.”  She looked at the picture with love in her eyes and her smile widened.  “Hopefully you'll get to meet her soon.”

****

They settled into a rhythm with training, and day-to-day life, so that after a few weeks Mira felt almost comfortable.  Up every morning for running and stretches.  Mira was surprised to learn that she was far more advanced in her training than most of the adults in Espoir, so she assisted Beatrice in training a rotating cast of locals, depending upon the day, and eventually began to lead her own classes of teenagers, under Beatrice’s supervision, once her arm healed.  

Lunch in the village, usually with Chanel or Hans or both.  Mira found that she liked both of them as she got to know them.  Chanel was one of the nicest, coolest people she ever met, and had a way of talking that always made Mira feel good about herself.  Hans was awkward and kind of a dork, but he knew it, and eventually figured out how to make Mira laugh (usually with his more or less successful efforts at juggling).

In the afternoons, she chopped wood, and gathered food.  Sometimes that meant berries and mushrooms; sometimes Beatrice took her out hunting.  After, they took time to read or meditate, and then Beatrice trained Mira until dinner.

On weekends, Beatrice encouraged Mira to spend time in the village with “someone your own age,” which is how she started spending time with Jacques and Sofie and Amina.  Jacques had dark brown skin and black curly hair that puffed out around his head; at 15, he was the oldest, but short for his age, only a few centimeters taller than Mira.  Sofie and Amina were both 14.  Sofie had straight dark brown hair and pale skin, with broader shoulders and waist than the rest.  Amina was the tallest, and lean, a good head taller than Jacques, with medium brown skin and curly hair that reminded Mira of Nadia, when Amina didn’t have her hair braided, anyway.  

“So where did you grow up?” Jacques asked one day as they walked through the fields.

“In a Cradle to the southwest.  The Holy Mother and the Sister Warriors took me in when I was a baby.”  She and Amina were taking turns trying to see who could walk on their hands the farthest; the grass tickled their faces when they tried, which added to the challenge.

“What was that like?”

Mira thought for a bit before she slipped and she had to drop her feet to the ground to avoid falling.  “It was a lot like here in some ways.  We had a church instead of a main hall, though.  And no merchants coming to trade; the Sister Warriors would leave to trade with people nearby, but no one was supposed to know where we were.”

Sofie frowned.  “But what did you have a church for if you weren’t trying to be found?  Wouldn’t the Tyrant just steal your prayers?”

Mira frowned too.  Amina was going to win this time.  She was still going.  “We never prayed, really.  The Holy Mother or one of the Sisters would talk about our hopes for the future and how we wouldn’t pray because we wouldn’t feed the Tyrant, but we should hold our hopes for the future tightly, because one day we would be free, and then we could pray again.”

Amina finally fell over, so Mira took another turn.  “What about Ms. Beatrice?” Amina asked.  “I heard she used to be a nun, a Sister Warrior.  Does she ever say prayers to hold onto?”

Mira fell too quickly that time.  “No, never.  She just tells me what to do for training and things.”  

“Do you like being her student?” asked Sofie, quietly.  “It’s a big honor.”

Mira thought for a little bit, about running until she collapsed and chopping wood until she couldn’t lift her arms, about hot chocolate and quiet nights reading by the fire, about harsh words and soft apologies.  She shrugged.  “Sometimes, I guess.  I’m learning a lot.  I didn’t know anything about her before I met her, so it never seemed like a big deal to me.”

“She likes you, you know,” said Amina.  She shoved Mira’s shoulder gently.

“Who, Beatrice?”

Jacques rolled his eyes.  “Yes, Beatrice!  She gets this smile on her face when she’s watching you teach or spar.  Beatrice never smiles during training.”

That was true, as far as Mira had seen.  A tightening of the mouth in something halfway to approval, a stoic nod, and maybe a kind word were the best Mira could hope for during training.  “If you say so.”

Later, Sofie told Mira she was pretty, and Mira blushed, and wondered if Nadia ever thought about her.

****

“That’s beautiful.”

Mira jumped a little at Beatrice’s voice and half moved to cover the notebook that Chanel had got for her from a merchant who came from upriver; they were apparently going to see more of those now that the snows at the higher elevations were starting to melt, and people were willing to travel down the Rhone and its tributaries for trade.  “A belated birthday present” Chanel had called it, and winked, like it wasn’t some irreplaceable piece of the Old World.  Or maybe it was.  Maybe someone had put together something that could mass-produce paper somewhere upriver, or further east even.

“It’s nothing.  I’m just practicing.”

“Who is that?” Beatrice asked as she smoothly settled onto the other side of the couch, resting her feet on the low table between them and the fireplace.  The smell of something delicious wafted in from the kitchen.

“Nadia.”

Beatrice folded her hands over her belly.  “May I watch?”

Mira thought for a moment, then nodded.  She let the charcoal move over the paper, filling in details here and there.  She didn’t know how long it would take to forget what someone looked like, and she didn’t want to find out.

As she finished, she looked up and saw Beatrice’s eyes were shining.  “What?”

Beatrice smiled and wiped delicately at the corners of her eyes, then shook her head.  “I just…I’m very glad you’re able to find someone you care about and…”  She turned her head and stared off into the fireplace for a long few moments.  “Did Mary ever tell you about the Old World?  How some people looked at men who loved men, women who loved women?”

Mira cocked and shook her head.  Everything she knew about love she knew from stories, or from watching the people around her.  No one at the Cradle treated someone differently just because of who they loved; why would they?  It had never occurred to her that things might have been different once.

Beatrice kept her eyes on the fire as she spoke.  “When I was growing up, my parents made it very clear that I was expected to marry a man, that love, romantic love, was something that took place between a man and a woman because that was the only kind of love God permitted, except for love of God.  And I remember thinking maybe I could just give all my love to God someday, because I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to love a man.”

Mira snorted.  Beatrice turned and cocked an eyebrow.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…sorry.”  Mira blushed and ducked her head.

Beatrice looked back at the fire.  “It’s alright.  I suppose it is funny, now.  It was less funny as I got older and, around when I was your age, realized that I could understand very, very easily how someone could love a woman.  Didn’t understand how someone could not love them, in fact.  My best friend at the time wasn’t popular, hadn’t figured out how to do her makeup or hair yet.  But I liked how frizzy her hair got when it rained, and I thought her glasses were cute, and her braces, and I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her.  I eventually decided she felt the same way about me.  And then when I eventually tried, I found out that I was completely wrong.  She didn’t tell my parents, but she did tell her second best friend, who, it turns out, did like girls.  And one day she asked if we could study trigonometry together, and we kissed in my bedroom, and my parents caught us.”

Mira could see the tears falling clearly, glinting in the light of the fireplace, though Beatrice made no move to stop them.

“I cannot say how happy I am that you have grown up knowing that you do not need to hate yourself for whom you love.”

“I’m sorry.”  Mira didn’t know what else to say.

Beatrice shook her head.  “Don’t be.  My pain made me who I am.  I don’t…I don’t think I’ll ever forgive my parents, not that they wanted forgiveness, or cared about it.  But I let go of the hate some time ago.  As much as I could.”

“Are they still alive?”

Beatrice shrugged.  “I assume they died in the Scourge of London.  They would have been recalled when the first countries started to declare for the Tyrant.  I spoke to them once, before the end, or tried to.  They hadn’t changed, and that was…it made it easier to let go.  Knowing they didn’t want me, would never want me.”

Mira wondered what that would be like, having parents who didn’t want her.  It had never really occurred to her that parents could hate their own children, or teach their children to hate themselves.  Since she was little, the Holy Mother had told her again and again “Your parents are watching over you, always,” generally sandwiched between promises that no weapon formed against her would prosper (because Mother liked the sound of it in the old religious texts) and that any harm done to her would be returned sevenfold (because Mother liked the sound of that too, but also because she was “vengeful as hell” and would “make sure of it”).  She had been nine when she started to wonder whether Mother really believed it; religious worship fed the Tyrant, so no one was allowed to pray, but Mother and some of the Sisters still taught some of the old beliefs.  But even if Heaven was a lie told by the Tyrant to steal prayer from humanity, she liked to imagine that her parents’ love was something she could always carry forward with her.  Something they gave to her for safekeeping, to survive when they did not.

They sat for a while quietly as Mira began another sketch, this time of the woman in the photograph (when it was done, she would give it as a gift to her teacher).  After a while, Beatrice brought them both soup.  She seemed more relaxed than usual, more open, and so Mira decided to ask.  “What’s with the tattoos?”

Beatrice turned her head and cocked an eyebrow.  “What?”

“Your…”  Mira gestured to her own neck, and then down her body by way of explanation.  She had by now seen her teacher’s hands and feet, so that she knew the tattoos’ fractal latticework extended all over Beatrice’s body, everywhere but her head.  “They’re divinium, aren’t they.”

The corner of Beatrice’s mouth twitched.  “You’re very clever, aren’t you.  What makes you say that?”

“When I first met you, you grabbed the wraith with your hand and crushed it.  I didn’t know whether you had divinium in your gloves or whether it was your tattoos or what, but…I figured…”  Mira shrugged and trailed off.

Beatrice smiled softly.  “Yes, the tattoos are divinium.  What about it?”

“Did it hurt?”

Beatrice barked a laugh.  “Yes, it hurt.  It hurt terribly.  You’re supposed to do full body tattoos in bits, one part at a time, to let the body heal, but we didn’t have time for that.  The back one day, the front the next, then weeks of painkillers while I healed.  My skin didn’t fully heal for months.”

“Was it just you, or are there other Sister Warriors running around with tattoos like that?”

Beatrice shook her head.  “No.  No one else.  If you should ever see someone with tattoos like mine, you should run.”

“Why?”

Beatrice looked off into the distance, then sighed and looked back at Mira.  “Because it means that the Tyrant has learned something new, and you’re probably going to die.”

Mira bit the inside of her lip and glared.  “Is that supposed to scare me?”

Beatrice’s lips twisted, as if she were chewing on the corner of her mouth, or trying to hide a smile.  “Does it not?”

“I scare easier if I actually know what I’m supposed to be scared of.”

Beatrice huffed, though Mira couldn’t tell if she was laughing or frustrated.  “Alright then.  What do you know about tarasks?”

Mira knew everything there was to know about tarasks.  “Tarasks are demons of the Tyrant, huge, impossible to kill without the aid of a Halo.  They used to hunt the Halo, but they can only stay in our world for a short time.  Divinium can banish them in the presence of the Halo’s energy.  And no one has seen one since the Fall.”

Beatrice nodded.  “Not bad.  You’ve read Yasmine’s work, and Jillian’s.”  Mira tried not to gawk that her teacher was on a first-name basis with Sister Yasmine and the Savior of Humanity.  “But do you know why no one has seen a tarask since the Fall?”

Mira shook her head.

“Because we were hunting them.  Tarasks are…unique.  Or they were.  A tarask’s skeleton, its frame, is made of divinium.  They are, or were, the only source of new divinium we had available to us.  That structure allows it to interact with incorporeal beings, such as wraiths, or Halo-bearers who have pulled themselves out of phase with normal matter.  This is a necessity, given the other components of its body.”  Beatrice held up her hand and turned it back and forth, staring at the fractal patterns of the dark tattoos.  

“Tarasks are made by fusing wraiths with a divinium frame, anchoring them to corporeality when they manifest here.  You’ve seen firsthand that a single wraith possessing a corporeal host enhances its strength enormously.  A tarask has several times the strength of a single wraith, because it is comprised of several wraiths conjoined.  Enough to contend with a Halo-bearer.  Or an Angel.”

“So what does that have to do with you?  With your…”  Mira stopped as realization struck, her jaw slightly ajar.

Beatrice nodded.  “Not all skeletons are internal, and it turns out an exoskeleton can serve a similar function.  There were six wraiths, all of them volunteers.  Many of the ones who served Adriel were…fanatical in their devotion to the cause, and desperate for a champion who could stand against…against the Halo-bearer.  The process kills their consciousness, but the rest of them lives on, bound inside me.”  

“Did you…did you fight her?  The Betrayer?”

Beatrice sipped her soup, and did not look up.  “I did.”

Mira felt her heart race.  “Did you win?”

“That…is a complicated question.”

“You’re here.  You’re alive, so you must have, right?”

Her teacher considered before answering.  “I suppose I did, in the end.”

Mira felt goosebumps rise electric along her arms and neck.  “Did you kill her?”

The corners of Beatrice’s eyes turned down.  “No.  When the time came, I couldn’t.  Wouldn’t.”

One more person responsible for the loss of Mira’s parents.  Someone who could have saved them and chose not to.  She tried to keep the anger from her voice, and thought she probably failed.  “Why not?”

“When you get older, if you get that old, you’ll learn that there are some things that happen to you that divide your life in half.  Everything in your life is either before, or after.  And if that dividing line is something good, then you lose the ability to regret anything from before.  Because you can’t regret that something good.  Not ever.  Not even if the world burns.”  Her teacher stood, and did not look at her again.  “It’s getting late.  Time for bed.  I’ll clean up tonight.”

Mira didn’t object.  She had other questions starting to form in the back of her mind, things she wanted to ask, but it hurt too much to think about them now.  She spent the extra time she was freed from chores crying herself to sleep.

****

“You look a lot like her.”

Jacques hadn’t meant anything by it.  That’s what he said, anyway.  At first.

“OK, yes, I thought you were her long-lost daughter or niece or something when you first showed up, but come on.  Amina, you see it too, right?”

Amina nodded.  They were sitting on the roof of the main hall watching the sun set over the western gate.  Mira considered pushing both of them off.

“See?”

Mira turned to Sofie on her left.  “You didn’t think that, did you?”

Sofie bit her lip.  “No, I didn’t.”

Mira nodded emphatically and turned back to Jacques and Amina on her right.  “There, you see?”

Sofie mumbled something.

“What?”

Sofie wouldn’t look at her.  “I said I never thought you were her niece.” 

Mira didn’t leave right away, nor did she ignore her friends for the rest of the time they had together.  But neither was she really there anymore.  She agreed with comments she hadn’t really heard, smiled at jokes she didn’t understand, let Sofie play with her fingers without really feeling anything.  All she could think was, what if they were right?  They probably weren’t; eyes like hers and Beatrice’s weren’t that common in this part of the world (Mother had told her they were very common further east), probably it was just that.  Besides, Beatrice didn’t even seem to like men, so would she even have had a kid?

But what if it was true?  Had Mother lied to her?  She couldn’t remember the conversation where she first learned about her parents, not word for word, but she didn’t really care whether the Holy Mother had actually said “your parents are dead.”  She’d let Mira think it.  Her whole life, thinking they died, murdered with billions of others by the Betrayer and the Tyrant.  What if she’d been abandoned after all?  Unwanted.  Not watched over, but given away to a friend.  Mother had said there used to be ways for a woman to have a baby even without a man.  But then Beatrice would have had to have wanted the baby.

Mira thought of nothing else while the sun set.  When Beatrice emerged from her time with Chanel and Hans to retrieve her and walk home in the moonlight.  When they got in the house.  Mira held her tongue though, at least until they were seated by the fire, drinking one of the last servings of hot chocolate they would have before the weather turned too warm to drink it, even at night.

“Tell me about my parents.”

Beatrice froze.  Only for a moment, but Mira had been around her long enough to tell.  “What makes you think I knew your parents?”

“The Holy Mother knew them.  You know her.  You all fought together, on the same side, before the Fall.  Also, you’re really careful about lying and you didn’t say you didn’t know them because you’re not as tricky as you think you are.”

Beatrice scoffed, or laughed, Mira couldn’t tell, but she didn’t say anything.  She just stared at Mira.

One day, Mira thought, she would win one of these staring contests against her teacher.  But today wasn’t that day.  “My mother, then.  Tell me about her.”

Beatrice began to play with her fingers.  At first Mira thought it was an exercise of some kind, but after a little bit she decided Beatrice didn’t realize she was doing it.  

“I met your mother much like I met you.  She was in danger, and she looked like she would be a handful, so I tranquilized her.”  Beatrice’s lips quirked up.  “At first, I didn’t have a very high opinion of her.  She seemed to me to be selfish, afraid.  But I think that was my own prejudices changing how I saw her.  She proved to be the bravest person I’ve ever known.  Stubborn to a fault.  Self-sacrificing to a fault.  But she had more joy, and a greater love for life, than anyone else I have ever known.  I envied her that.”

“What happened to her?”

Beatrice sighed, then frowned for a while.  “Your mother knew she was going to die.  With certainty.  Fighting in this war…risking what she did…she couldn’t risk you.  Couldn’t hurt you that way.  She took you to Mary and asked that Mary keep you safe and raise you well.  And now, here we are.”

Mira didn’t say anything at first.  She thought if she did, she would probably cry, and she really didn’t want to cry.  Once she thought she could speak without falling apart, she asked,  “Are you lying to me?  Are you her?”  

Beatrice paused, and when she looked at Mira her eyes were hard like crystal, or glass.  “You know that I had no part in raising you.  If you are asking whether I birthed you, I have never lain with a man, nor shall I, nor have I given birth through any other means.  Nor shall I.”

Mira swallowed, though the knot in her throat did not move.  “Did you want to be?” she tried to say, though the words came out strangled at best.

Her teacher did not answer for a while, so that Mira decided she had overstepped, and stood and turned to go to bed when she heard a response.  “Some people aren’t meant to be parents.”

Chapter Text

It says this can end.  I don't know who may see this, maybe no one, but please, whomever you may be, know that we tried.  The miracles it performs…people are dying by the thousands, and we can do nothing.  It isn't human, conventional weapons are useless, and God help me but I will not detonate a nuclear bomb on British soil and label millions of our people collateral damage to kill this thing.  Not when there may be more out there.  I agreed to terms of surrender this morning.  It says that it serves the “true” god, and its god wants nothing from us but our loyalty, and our love.  May God have mercy on us all.

Excerpt from the diary of Brig. Gen. Thaddeus C. Biltmore, Commander in Chief of British Armed Forces, two days after the Scourging of London, 22 January, 6 B.F. (date corrected from pre-Fall notation)

Mira hadn’t noticed the person who took her.  She was used to strangers, travelling merchants, sometimes people who journeyed to other towns to meet old friends or the rare surviving family member, or scavengers raiding one of the safer ruins for supplies. She remembered walking through town by herself, wanting more time alone after her talk with Beatrice, then someone was grabbing her, and all she could smell was sweetness, like a flower, and then nothing.  

From time to time she would open her eyes and see the sky above her, sometimes blue, sometimes cloudy.  Once she managed to turn her head slightly to see trees moving across the skyline.  Every time, her vision clouded over, a sweet smell filled her nose, and darkness came. 

Then, eventually, she opened her eyes and there was no sky.  There was candlelight flickering against a pale cloth, suspended by intersecting poles of a dark material she couldn’t quite make out.  She felt a soft touch, but painful, against her knee, and tried to kick and sit up, but her body was sluggish, and a soft lurch was all she managed before she remembered that she should be lying still and pretending to be asleep if she wanted to escape.

“Shhhh, it’s alright.”  A woman’s voice, and Mira turned to see a woman with light brown skin and light curly hair dipping a cloth into a shallow metal bowl.  “I’m just cleaning you up.  You got a few scrapes getting here.”  Her voice was soft, kind even, but she was wearing a white robe with the cross of the Tyrant.  

“Where am I?”  Mira didn’t try to move.  She needed to gather information before she could plan an escape, especially after having the bad luck to awaken with one of her captors in the room.

The woman tutted.  “You’re safe.  But I know how this goes.  You try to run, and you’ll get snapped up by the wraith-ridden, or fall and break your leg and starve out in the wilderness, or worse.  So…”  The woman applied an ointment and wrapped a bandage around Mira’s leg.  “...how about you just take a little bit to heal up first, and then you can get your bearings and escape to wherever you might like, alright?”  The woman smiled brightly, matching the upbeat tone of her voice.  “I’ll have someone bring you some food, I understand you haven’t eaten in a little while.”

When the woman finished and left, Mira counted to 300, then walked to the tent flap.  She peered through the gap and saw people dressed in white over metal armor, walking back and forth.  The sound of axe blades into wood echoed in the distance, and the low crunch of small-linked chains, and the murmur of indistinct conversation.  She almost pulled back the flap, until she noticed four shadows the width of feet along the base of the tent to either side of the entrance.  She made her way back to the sick bed, laid back down, and waited.

****

Mira had heard some, and read more, tales of the methods of the Tyrant.  It was said she could peer into the minds of mortals, that her Angels could do the same.  That those who fell into her hands came out warped, their minds twisted to her will, driven endlessly to her purposes in ways her victims could not explain or resist.  That time bent to her will, so that she might torment her prey for years in the span of minutes.  None could defy her, in the end.

And so Mira was unsure whether to be offended, or disappointed, or relieved that she appeared to be subject to none of these horrors.  She was in a tent, sitting on a metal chair built to fold, at a modest square table.  Her hands were bound in front of her with metal cuffs linked by a narrow chain, but her feet were free, and no demons from hell nor Angels from heaven had entered to accost her.  Other than the fact that she had been kidnapped, her primary complaint would have been boredom.

She imagined Beatrice coming through the flap of the tent behind her to rescue her.  Would Beatrice be able to find her so quickly?  The person who took her had carried her a long way, she was sure, perhaps by river, or by cart, or both, and who knew what had been done while she slept to hide the trail.  Was it possible Beatrice wouldn’t find her at all?  Perhaps it was foolish, but she thought not.  Her teacher was the most capable person she had ever met.  It might take time, but she was confident that Beatrice would find the trail and rescue her.  

Her thoughts continued in that direction, imagining first how Beatrice might come upon the Shining Ones, then drifting to how escape might be managed, so that when Beatrice found Mira she would have no choice but to be impressed with Mira’s cunning and skill, until a man entered the tent.  He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a close-cropped beard and dark brown skin.  He had gray in his tightly curled hair, but few wrinkles, and a mouth that smiled easily, and widely.  His outfit was the white of the Shining Ones, though dirtied by travel, and with a three-pointed golden star upon the right shoulder.

“Good morning, child.”  His voice was deep and rich; Mira imagined he sang beautifully, and twisted her lips at the foolishness of the thought.  “Have you eaten yet?”

Mira nodded, because she had.

The man smiled.  “Good, good.  My name is Samuel, and I wanted to play a game with you, if that’s alright.”  He pulled from a pouch at his belt a small rectangular box, small enough to sit neatly in the palm of his hand, and sat down across from her.

Mira wondered if she had hit her head, or perhaps was asleep and in the midst of some strange dream.  “What?  What are you talking about?”

The man, Samuel, chuckled.  “Sorry, I forgot.  This is the part where I tell you that YOU MUST TELL ME WHERE THE TRAITORS HIDE, OBEY AND I WILL LET YOU LIVE.”  He deepened his voice as he spoke, exaggerated and sinister; Mira thought he sounded a little ridiculous.  He must have as well, because he laughed.  “Oh no.  I can see from the look on your face that you’re resistant to my usual methods.  I’ll have to use something more…drastic.”

He frowned absurdly and stood, hunched in a parody of menace, and slouched over to her.  “Torture it is then.”  He raised a finger and pointed at her, though with his arm tucked close so that his hand was in front of his face.  He moved his finger back and forth in some arcane pattern, then slowly brought it towards Mira’s face, closer, closer, until it hovered right between Mira’s eyes….

Then he pushed her in the forehead just hard enough so that her head rocked back slightly.

Samuel gasped.  “Remarkable.  You’re impervious to torture as well?  I suppose I’ll have to give up on the interrogation completely!”  He walked back around the table and sat again, then tapped his knuckles against the rectangular box.  “So.  How about that game?”

****

Samuel explained the rules, the suits, which cards were high and low, and brought out a box of buttons to distribute evenly between them to gamble with.

“Here’s a riddle for you,” he said as he dealt the cards, two face down to each of them.  “Well, not much of a riddle, but humor me.  This is a game of the Old World.  Is it a game of skill, or of luck?”

Mira kept the question in mind as she played the first hand and was beaten when Samuel’s hidden cards, when combined with the five communal cards he dealt onto the middle of the table during the game, made a better combination than hers.  She kept it in mind when Samuel pushed a large pile of buttons into the table with a smile, and she gave up (“folded,” he said it was called) that hand without risking more.  She kept it in mind when, finally having been dealt a good hand, she pushed all her buttons in when he bet more than she had left, only to discover that his hand was worthless compared to hers.

Mira sat back and frowned as Samuel gathered the cards and shuffled.  “When you pushed the big pile of buttons to the center before…you didn’t have anything then either, did you?”

Samuel shrugged and pretended to hide a smile.  “You’ve gotta call if you want to see the cards.”

“But that means you could…”  Mira thought for a moment.  “...it’s a game of lies.”

Samuel barked a laugh and slammed a hand loudly on the table so that Mira almost jumped in surprise.  “You’ve got it!  That’s it exactly.  There’s luck, and there’s skill, but more than anything else this is a game of lies.  Who can lie and not get caught, who can catch someone else in the right lie at the right time.  Maybe I want to win but I don’t have the cards, so I make it seem like I can’t be beat.  Maybe I’ve got the winning hand, but I want you to think I’m weak so I can get you to bet it all, so I can win everything at once.  And that’s just if you follow the rules.”  He dealt out a queen of diamonds face up, then put it in the deck, shuffled, and somehow dealt the queen of diamonds again, and then again.

Samuel looked at Mira’s face and chuckled.  “That’s the Old World for you.  I can’t play this game with people who were raised in the Shining Cities, you know.  No lying under Reya’s law.  Game like this, would just corrupt people.  Small price to pay, though.  To fix the world.”

Mira frowned and opened her mouth, then thought better of it.

“It’s alright,” soothed Samuel, “I bet I know what you were about to say.  ‘Samuel, I always heard the Tyrant destroyed the world, or the Betrayer did on the Tyrant’s orders!  The Old World was better, because we were free!’  Am I close?”

He smiled slyly, and Mira nodded, dumbfounded.

“Can I tell you a little story about freedom in the Old World?”

Mira said he could.

“Take a look at my skin.  You see that deep brown?  Where you came from, did they treat people differently, treat them worse, if they had skin like this?”

Mira cocked her head and wrinkled her eyes with confusion.  “No.  Why would they?”

Samuel pursed his lips in a restrained smile, and peaked his eyebrows and put his right hand over his heart.  “Beautiful.  That’s a beautiful sentiment, young lady.  Why would they indeed.”  He began to shuffle the cards, then dealt out a new game that Mira didn’t recognize, and apparently didn’t require a second person to play.  

“In the Old World, people didn’t treat each other like they do now.  Back then, you had countries that would go to war and kill and murder and torture just to steal land or things from the people who had them.  And one of the ways they made themselves feel better about doing these awful things was to say ‘oh, well it’s because we’re better than those other people, they wouldn’t know what to do with their land or things anyway.’  And one of the ways they decided that other people were worse was skin color.”

“I’m not from here originally, you know?  I came here from the other side of the ocean when I was young.  My daddy, he looked a lot like me.  And in the Old World, at that time, that meant that he could be hurt or killed for doing anything, or doing nothing, just because of the color of his skin.  And one day a police officer, those were like the guards in the old days, except they only guarded things for people who had more than they needed, he came up to my daddy and asked him what he was doing.  And my daddy turned around to show that he had just gotten a sandwich to eat for lunch, and the man killed him.  And the man said he thought the sandwich was a weapon, and the people in charge said “that’s good enough for us,” and that was that.  My family was fortunate, we had enough money to move, but it turned out things weren’t much better over on this side of the ocean.”

Then he showed her how to play the game with only one player, and a few tricks involving counting cards, and how to deal from the bottom of the deck, though Mira needed a lot of practice to get as good as him.  Then he said “I’ve got a few things to take care of elsewhere, but you hold on to those.  When you’ve had enough, just scream as loud as you can and I’ll come by and accept your surrender.”  He said it with a smile, and Mira smiled back.  

When he left, Mira practiced dealing from the bottom of the deck, and wondered what else about the world she hadn’t been taught.

****

There was another boy in the camp, around her age, named Vikram.  He was tall and lanky, with light brown skin, dark curly hair, and an awkward way about him, made worse by the unruly and unevenly spaced hairs growing from his chin and above his lip.  “So where’d they get you from?” he asked on the third day, when Mira was allowed to eat outdoors, sitting on the ground around a firepit.  They hadn’t broken camp or moved, at least not while Mira was awake, not for the whole three days.

Mira shrugged.  “Just a village I was in.”  It seemed a lot to explain how she had gotten there, the transience of her intended stay, her purpose, even when all these things had been given to her without much explanation to begin with.  A lot to say especially to a boy she had only just met.

Vikram nodded as if she had said something worth saying.  “I’m from New Dijon.  Wraith-ridden took me in a raid, then these ones came and got me from the wraiths.  I asked to go back, but they said I was better off.”  He shrugged and stared at the dirt.  “Guess there wasn’t much to go back to anyway.”

Mira frowned.  “Your family?”

Vikram shrugged and shook his head, though he didn’t look up.  “My parents had me late, they were, um…they said the bodies must have been too old for the wraiths to want.”

Mira thought about reaching a hand out to offer comfort, but didn't.  “I’m sorry.”

Vikram nodded.

They finished eating in silence.

****

The next time Mira saw Samuel he was holding a guitar and playing something sad and slow, waiting for her in her tent when she came back from lunch.  “So tell me, child.  What do you know of the Shining Cities?”

The bribe the Tyrant offered some of humanity to betray everyone else.  “You live safe.  You have more than you need.  You do whatever she tells you to do.  When I was little I kind of wondered if you cried all the time because of all the people you kill, but none of you seem sad to me.”  Beatrice would have told her not to say that last part.  Mother too.

Samuel's expression shifted for a heartbeat, something in the direction of sad, or upset, or hurt, but then it was gone, and he was all teeth again.  “That's a lot of hate they taught you.  Would it surprise you to hear that I've never killed anyone in my life?”

Mira shrugged.  “Not really.  You seem like you lie a lot, so I don't think I'd be surprised to hear anything from you.”  She winced a little, she could already hear Mother and her teacher yelling at her for being too smart with her mouth.  She was supposed to act docile if captured, to make it easier to escape.  But that was with proper interrogation, not whatever this was.  No one had ever told her getting captured would be so boring.

Samuel shook his head.  “I haven’t lied to you at all.  Those of us who live in the Shining Cities?  We have no reason to kill anyone.  Throughout history, before Reya revealed Herself to the world, people killed each other all the time.  Usually to get something they wanted that someone else had, or because they were afraid someone else would take something they had and wanted to stop them.  Now?  We have everything we need.  The bounty of a thousand lands sustains us, through God’s love.”

“But you only got that because she killed everyone else, right?  Her and the Betrayer.”

Samuel shrugged.  “We call her the Apostate, actually.  She abandoned the cleansing before it was complete.  But those who died at her hand chose that death willingly.  All they had to do was accept Reya’s love and they would have been spared.  They made the world we live in, as much as the Apostate did.”

“So you’re saying my parents chose to die.”  She put as much sarcasm into the words as she knew how.

Samuel sat back for a moment.  “Do you know what a death spiral is?”

Mira shook her head.

Samuel set aside the guitar, then got down on one knee to draw in the dirt.  “In another part of the world there’s a type of ant that travels in huge columns along the ground, to forage for the colony.  Except sometimes…”  He drew little lines in the dirt rapidly, so that they almost looked like ants moving in a circle.  “...something goes wrong.  They lose the scent of the other ants leading them, and they just start following each other around, and around and around, until they die.”

“Do you practice these?  Like in a mirror?”

He chuckled.  “That’s what the Old World was.  Everyone just following the person in front of them while the world circled the drain.  The Apostate just…sped things up.  Humanity didn’t need any help to doom themselves.  They were doing just fine on their own.”

Mira cocked her head and looked at the circle on the ground.  Some of the Sisters back at the cradle liked to ask questions when they taught.  Instead of just telling you what they were trying to teach you, they tried to get you to figure out the answer on your own.  Mira kind of hated it.  Samuel seemed to her like that sort of teacher, except Mira didn’t think he was very good at it.  “So you think it’s OK to step on the ants because they’re going to die anyway.  But you could save them instead, right?”  Samuel looked at her like it had never occurred to him before to try to help another person.  “You could just show the ants the way back to their colony.  Or put them in a jar or carry them, or…anything.”

Samuel pressed his lips together tightly.  He looked like he was about to speak when someone began to tap on the entrance to Mira’s tent.  He stood and walked past her to the entrance.

“What?”  Samuel’s voice was low and harsh.

“Brother, I am … that Holy Uriel has been … all possible haste.”

Mira hazarded to turn and look behind her.  Samuel was gnawing at the corner of his lip.  “And the Captain knows?”

The woman at the entrance moved in the shadows of the night outside, but Mira couldn’t tell how or in what direction.

Samuel nodded.  “Thank you.”

Mira turned back and waited for him to return to his seat opposite her.

When he sat, he wasn’t smiling anymore.  “Do you know that it’s very frustrating trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?  Who fights salvation, kicking and screaming?

“I haven’t kicked you or screamed.”

Samuel rolled his head back and stared at the top of the tent, or perhaps through it to the night sky beyond.  “What do you think you want from life, Mira?  If you live to be as old as your Mother Superion, or your teacher, what would you do with yourself?  Would you start a family, do you think?  Perhaps grow crops?  Find some other way of struggling in misery to survive until illness or a storm or a band of wraith-ridden come and take away everything?  You cannot begin to imagine the freedom of the Shining Cities.  To practice all manner of arts, to study and learn from the histories and stories of ages long past.  You have lost so much, and there is so much to know, to learn, to do.  What kind of person would you be, if you could choose anything?”

Mira looked into his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she tried to take the knife from his belt and stab him in the neck with it.  “I don’t know for sure.  I guess I’d like to be the sort of person who stops people like you from killing people like your dad.”

Samuel did not return after that.

Chapter Text

God has blessed us.  No more suffering, no more pain, no more lies.  Worship Her light, and you will live forever and ever in a Shining City upon the hill.  You will eat and drink from Heaven's table.  You will never suffer war.  The sun will warm you, not burn you to ash.  The rain will nourish your crops, not drown you in your homes.  The wind will cool you on warm summer days, not tear down your cities.  All this pain…it comes from defying Her love.  Let it end. [Transcriber's note: video begins inside the hurricane while a skyscraper falls in the background; speaker ascends above the clouds and changes the video angle while speaking so that the top of the hurricane is visible behind her by the end of the video]

-Salvian Archives Transcript of a video of the Betrayer taken by her during Hurricane Melinoe's landfall.  Transcript has been defaced with a handwritten note: “Why doesn't she stop smiling That is not her smile”

A week, and no movement.

Mira had never heard of such a thing.  All day, she heard the sound of trees chopped and felled.  When her meals were brought to her (she was no longer permitted to leave the tent, a guard was posted to make sure of it), she caught glimpses of wooden walls and palisades, a long walking platform along the interior for the guards to watch a perimeter presumably filled with stumps.  What they were watching for, Mira could not say.  But whatever it was, they had lost interest in converting her to their cause.

As almost everyone in the camp had decided to ignore Mira except when strictly necessary, most of Mira’s interactions were with Vikram.  He was too young and unimportant to be paid much mind, even for talking to her.  Mira intended to take advantage of that fact.

“So what did your people used to say about the Shining Ones?”  Mira was careful not to ask about Vikram’s parents, not directly.

Vikram shrugged.  His eyes went unfocused.  “Samuel says they've got all the food I could want, so we'll never go hungry.  We had a bad harvest a few years ago and my sister…it sounds nice.  Plus they could teach me to read properly.”

“Sure, that's what they say about themselves.  But what about your people?  If the Shining Cities are really so great, why didn't your people join them?”

Vikram bit his lip.  “My folks said that…that they hurt people.  A lot of people.  Killed people.  I had an aunt and uncle that I never knew, my dad said.  He couldn't forgive that.”

“What about you?” asked Mira.

Vikram shrugged again.  “I never knew them.”

****

“So why are they all the way out here if the Shining Cities are so great?  And why aren't we going anywhere?”

Vikram was digging a new latrine, or Mira thought he was.  Tough to tell whether they were just giving him busy work to make him feel important.  Mira was watching Vikram, and the guards were watching her not so subtly.  It had rained overnight, which made the work messy.  Mira watched earthworms wriggle out of the ground while she waited for Vikram to answer; every now and again a robin, red-feathered on its face and chest, would swoop down and make off with a meal.

Vikram huffed.  “They’re out here protecting people, I guess.  They say the Shining Cities are like the Old World used to be, you know?  Everybody has enough food, they’ve got running water and electricity and flying machines, everybody’s happy, all they have to do is pray to the…to Reya.  And out here everything’s hard and awful, and it makes sense that they’d want to help.”

Mira thought about that for a little bit.  “Have you ever heard of the Shining Ones actually saving anyone from an attack by wraiths, or bandits, or anything, before it happened?”

Vikram stopped shoveling and frowned.  “No.”

Mira nodded.  “Neither have I.”

****

“You know they’re liars, right?”  She whispered to Vikram, who was sitting on the other side of one wall of her tent.  

Vikram didn’t answer at first.  He was slow that way, thoughtful.  “I mean…they wouldn’t lie about that though, right?”

“Think about it.  You didn’t actually see your parents die, right?  You didn’t see the bodies?  How would you ever know?  They want you to come with them, to join them, what better way than to make you think you have nothing to go back to?  That they’re the ones who can give you a chance to protect people from the band that hurt you.”

Vikram was warming up to the idea, Mira was fairly certain.  It had taken several days of conversation before she was willing to broach the subject.

“If I left…do you think…do you think you could help me?” Vikram asked.  “I’ve never really been out on my own.  I could use someone to watch my back, and you wouldn’t have to sit around here doing nothing all day, waiting for whatever.”

In the unsecured privacy of her tent, Mira pumped both fists in a silent cheer.  “I could do that.  We just have to figure a way past the gates.”

Vikram was silent for a few moments.  “OK.  OK, I gotta go, but I’ll think about it.”

****

Mira had been taught to collect what she could in captivity.  “You hide what you can, when you can, because you never know when you'll need it,” Mother had said.  And so a grave of rabbit bones grew in the dirt beneath Mira's tent, next to another filled with nuts and dried meat from when they gave her rations.  For the rest, she relied upon her growing friendship, or at least common cause, with Vikram.  

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Vikram asked.  Mira thought it would be rude to call Vikram a coward, and probably he wouldn't help her then, so she kept that particular thought to herself.

“Escape from a bunch of people who worship the thing that killed my parents and are keeping me trapped inside a walled camp?  Yeah, I'm sure I want to do that.”  She went back to the exercises Beatrice had taught her; there wasn't much else to do in the tent since she'd pissed off Samuel.

The truth was, Mira would much prefer not to have to plan her own escape.  It would be her preference for Beatrice to arrive in the middle of the night, wreak bloody havoc on the Shining Ones, then spirit Mira away again, outrunning any pursuit.  But saying so out loud would do nothing to settle Vikram’s nerves, and Mira desperately needed Vikram calm.  And as much faith as Mira had in her teacher, she had no way of knowing how far away Beatrice was, or even if she had any idea where Mira had been taken.

“It's just…” Vikram muttered.

“Just what?”

No response came at first; then, “Nothing.  Forget it.”

Mira wished, not for the first time, that she was the one on the outside and Vikram was the one in the tent.  She had tried, more than once, to test the limits of her cloth cage, but there were too many eyes in the camp, and no other thirteen year old girls with whom to blend in.  And so she was kindly, but firmly, escorted back to the tent, again and again.  Even her bathroom breaks were well-regulated, as they apparently were paying close attention to how often they fed and watered her.  She considered feigning illness, but worried that was a gambit she could only try once, and she had no plan for what to do next, and no particular belief that being transferred to an infirmary tent would give her any advantage over her other tent.

And so she waited, and talked Vikram down, and relied on his eyes and reports for intelligence about the best direction in which to escape (the northwest), and the best time to attempt it (at night, halfway between the guard shifts, when that particular shift tended to nap).  The first night after they agreed on a plan, the guards on the northwest gate were wide awake, and so Mira sent Vikram back to his bed with a whisper.  And waited.

****

Three gentle taps came on the back of the tent.  Mira crawled on her hand and feet low to the ground, then slipped under the cloth.  It was just past the new moon; their escape would be lit by little more than starlight.  Mira expected it would slow them, but was confident it would slow their inevitable pursuers more.  

She nodded to Vikram’s shadow, then waited for him to lead the way towards the northwest gate.  The tops of the palisade seemed to glow; Mira presumed there were torches placed at intervals around the exterior of the wall to prevent anyone from sneaking in under cover of darkness.  At this hour, the attention of the guards faced outward, so that there were no eyes to see as Mira and Vikram snuck low towards the gate.  The two interior guards were seated, eyes closed, leaning heavily against the wooden columns supporting the palisade.

The double-doored gate was kept shut with a crudely hacked wooden crossbar.  Mira pressed her face close to the gaps in the wood and moved her head back and forth, checking for any guards just outside the gate.  Finding none, Mira gave the crossbar a testing push up on one end and, for the first time, was glad she had gotten Vikram involved; she would have had trouble lifting it by herself.

She pointed at the other end of the crossbar for Vikram to position himself and began to hold up a finger to count when one of the guards shifted and mumbled something under his breath.  Mira held up a palm to Vikram and waited.  The guard was facing away from her…as long as he didn't awaken completely and look around, they would be fine.

“BRENNmm!” the guard half shouted as he started awake.  Mira stayed very, very still in the shadows between the wooden column and the outer wall.  The guard turned to look at the other one, still asleep.  “Lazy…” he muttered, before his head began to droop.  His breathing deepened and slowed.

Mira looked back at Vikram, who was moving towards the crossbar again.  She swore he had never snuck anywhere in his life.  She held up a hand for him to wait, to give the guard a little more time to settle into a deeper sleep.  Then she counted with her fingers.

One.

Two.

Three.

They lifted together and brought the bar slowly to the ground.  Mira pushed one of the doors open slightly and looked out.  Torches were set high on the walls, leaning out at an angle and illuminating the surrounding area in flickering orange.

She eased open the door and slipped through the gap, gesturing for Vikram to follow slowly.  She had seen patrols along the top of the palisade before from the inside, so she kept flat against the wall.  Looking at the way the torches scattered light around the encampment, run from anywhere to the side of the torches would scatter light at a diagonal in two directions, easy and obvious for the guards to spot.  She thought their best chance would be to wait until a guard passed, then make a run for the treeline, some twenty meters away, straight from underneath one of the torches.  Once there was tree cover between them and anyone who might see, the could break off in their intended direction.  She whispered the plan to Vikram, who nodded his agreement.

She led Vikram slowly and quietly along the wall, staying low to avoid, as much as possible, being noticed from anyone who might wake and leave their tent inside the wall.  They paused under a torch and waited.  Mira listened for the sound of footsteps approaching them, growing louder, and louder from her left…and then quieter, and quieter to the right.  She held up a finger again for Vikram, counted to three, and ran as fast as she could through the light and into the safety of darkness.

****

They had been travelling for…Mira wasn’t sure.  An hour?  Two?  The trees were too heavy for her to get a good sense of the moon's progress, if she had remembered to note its position when they first left the encampment.  Which she hadn't. 

What Mira did know now was that Vikram was not a runner.  Maybe she was being unfair; not everyone had been trained like she had.  But she still thought it was surprising how quickly Vikram got winded, and forced her to slow their progress.

“I'm sorry,” he panted, “I'm sorry, I'll be…I just need a minute and we can keep going.”  

Mira put her hands on her hips.  Vikram was a problem, because Vikram had also forgotten to bring the waterskins Mira had expressly reminded him to bring, and they were both going to cramp up if they got dehydrated.  “It's fine.  We could use a rest.”

She leaned against a tree and started stretching.  “How far is your village?  How many days?”

Mira vaguely made out Vikram's shrug in the dim starlight.  “Maybe five days?  I don't know, I wasn't really keeping track.”

Mira took a deep breath and reminded herself that he had absolutely no training.  Just some poor kid from some farming village.  He didn't know any better.  “OK.  It's fine.  It's fine.  We'll keep going until we find a place to rest for the night that gives us some cover in case they come searching.  Then we'll keep moving come morning.”

She hoped they wouldn't care.  Two teenagers from nowhere, what could the Tyrant’s servants possibly want with them?  Of course, there was the fact that they had kidnapped her in the first place, taken her far from there, and done nothing with her other than keep her fed and confined.  She didn’t like where those thoughts led.

“Actually, let’s go west from here for a while.  Just in case they figure out where we’re headed; we don’t want to be traveling there by the same path.  Then we can rest.”

****

It was not fine.  Vikram was unused to long-distance wilderness travel.  Mira was only slightly more experienced, but between that and her training with Beatrice she was fairly certain that Vikram was accidentally pulling them off course.  It was all she could do to keep him from going in circles, a habit of inexperienced travelers about which Beatrice had warned her.  Unfortunately, that meant she was, at best, leading them back towards a path more in line with where a search party might look.

That nervousness stayed with her all morning and through their meager lunch of portions they had each stashed away in preparation for the journey.  It went away shortly thereafter, when they came upon confirmation that they were absolutely not being followed.

They were being waited for.

Vikram insisted on rushing ahead, he “knew this path,” and was greeted warmly by the band of maybe a dozen Shining Ones at the edge of a clearing where they were just finishing their own lunch.  He spared her a look back, and there was nothing warm or fearful in his eyes, and Mira wondered whether a word he had spoken to her was true.

One of them, taller than the rest, and older, barrel-chested with pale skin and white hair and a full white beard spoke from the back of a pale horse.  His voice was deep, but with none of the music of Samuel's.  “Child, know that the eyes of Uriel are always watching.  There is nowhere you can run, no escape you may attempt, that is not foreseen by his radiance.”

He walked the horse closer, so that he could almost reach down and grab her if he wished.  For her part, Mira wished that the woods they had just come through were thicker.  Maybe with some bramble.  So that she would be able to run without being easily caught.

“Now then.  We're not going to have any more trouble from you, are we.”

Mira shrugged.  “That depends.  Can I borrow your horse for a minute?”

The man didn't quite smile.  “No.”

****

When they got back to camp, they returned her to her tent.  That was foolish of them, but Mira figured the eyes of Uriel were probably busy watching clouds or ants crawling on blades of grass or something, instead of watching her inside her tent like they should have been.  She made sure eyes watched for something more useful, like the wheel tracks that led to the water barrels in the encampment, and what direction they went.

The man on the horse, the Captain, didn't say much to her, and no one else said anything, not even Vikram, or whatever his name really was.  Mira realized halfway back that he could just as easily have made that up too.  

Once she was back in the tent, the Captain had two men stay and watch her.  When he came back, he was dragging two lengths of chain, two long iron stakes, a thick set of manacles, and an enormous mallet  He put the manacles on her ankles and locked them in place and affixed a chain to each with a large lock, the kind Mother used to have put on the pantry to keep the children of the Cradle from stealing cookies.  Then he had the guards pull the chains to either side of her, so that she couldn't move more than a meter or so in any direction.  The Captain took one of the stakes, slotted it through two chain links at the far end of the chain from Mira, then had a guard hold the stake in place while he swung the mallet over and over again, until the stake was buried more than half Mira's height into the earth.  He did the same on the other side.  Then they left her alone in the dark of the tent. 

She would plan more carefully the next time.

Chapter Text

Angels, like wraiths, are primarily beings of energy.  They assume a physical shell of their choosing in our world, but are not dependent upon it.  Shoot them, stab them, detonate them, and they will remake themselves again and again.  An Angel can only be slain in our world by use of a similar energy source, or divinium, to disperse their energy over a sufficiently wide area before they have time to reconstitute themselves.  Given their panoply of supernatural abilities, this is a nigh impossible task.

Jillian Salvius, M.D., Ph.D., “The Physiology of Spiritual Entities”

For her final interrogation, the Captain spoke to her instead of Samuel.  There was no table, and no second chair.  No cards.  No games.  He sat in a chair, and Mira sat in the dirt, and he stared at her for a while.  It idly occurred to Mira that her hair was a mess after so many days without a brush or water or anything.  She wondered how she should cut it and how it would look short, and in a moment of fancy whether Nadia would like it that way.  If she ever saw Nadia again.

Just when Mira was starting to wonder how long it would take for the Captain to get bored of staring, he spoke.  He sounded bored, though he looked disappointed.  “You were found consorting with the Heretic.  This woman is a sworn enemy of God Herself.  She stands in opposition to all things holy, and has dared to take up arms against the Angels themselves.”

“You have been redeemed from bondage to this woman, in the hope that her heresy had not infected your young mind.  You have been given the opportunity to be educated in the way of Reya's Light.  You have refused.  You have been given sanctuary and safety here with us.  You have rejected it, and in so doing so you have defied the will of God as manifest in holy Uriel.  This will be your last opportunity to repent.  Will you cease to dwell in darkness?  Will you give yourself over to God's love?”

Mira thought about telling him what he wanted to hear.  But then Mira thought about the time when she was maybe six, and Guillaume, who was older, got angry with her for something and spat in her face.  Mother had gotten scary and told him to never do that again, that it was one of the worst, most disrespectful things you could do to another person, and she would never, ever tolerate that kind of behavior.  Guillaume had cried and said he was sorry, and the memory was strong enough that Mira had never in her life spat on another person.  But she thought this was probably the only time in her life when she might get to and Mother would still be OK with it.

She thought she did OK for a beginner, but sort of wished that her teacher had made more time for teaching this instead of just how to break someone's arm or leg from a prone position, or which mushrooms were poisonous and which were safe to eat.  She would practice on her own, if she got the chance.  Maybe Jacques or Amina could show her.  She tried not to think about the fact that she probably couldn't go back there again, now that the Shining Ones knew about it.

The Captain took out a cloth from his pocket and wiped his face.  “Child, if you refuse me now, the next questioning will be at the hands of holy Uriel, and none may hide truth from his eyes.  I promise you.  I have seen interrogation at the hands of an Angel.  For your own sake, do not subject yourself to it.  Tell me of your association with the Heretic. Tell me what you know of her plans, her other associates.  Spare yourself.”

She stared at him in silence.

He nodded.  “Uriel will be here soon to speak with you.  May God have mercy on your soul.”

****

Mira had no intention of waiting to talk to Uriel, but was glad they were going to leave her alone until then.  She was especially glad they hadn't moved her tent.  She began to dig.

Mira was eleven when Sister Agnes came back from a trading mission with cinnamon, and she had never tasted anything so heavenly as a cinnamon roll.  She was not the only one, to the degree that Mother had locked the leftovers in the pantry.  It was Matthieu who suggested that he might whittle a key, or an approximation of one, and wouldn't that be good enough?

It was more than enough, but Mother had caught them all the same.  There had been a lecture, or a rant, about how locks were better in the Old World.  Something about pins and teeth, which Mira had not understood.  At the end of it Mother had held up the wooden key and laughed.  “Y'all could probably have just used a bone from dinner, you realize that, right?”

Mother was right, as it turned out, though Mira ended up breaking the first two she used and having to desperately try to shake out the shards so they wouldn't clog the locking mechanism.  It was still faster than trying to dig out the stakes with her hands.

Once both manacles were loose, she made her way to the back of the tent and gently peeked under the edge.  No stars or moon visible, likely due to cloud cover.  The darkness once again concealed most of the interior of the camp, with most of the torchlight coming from outside the walls.  This time, Mira didn't intend to bother with the gates.  The walls were only a few meters high, after all.

She watched the guards make their way around the palisade and waited for a gap.  When she saw it, she crawled out of the tent and ran for it, up the ramp that led to the top of the wall, then vaulting over the edge and running straight for the treeline.

Let's see how good they are when they don't know where I'm going.

****

As it happened, the Shining Ones were far less effective trackers when they didn't know where they were going.  Unfortunately, Mira was also far less effective at navigating at a run, in the dark, through the woods.  She discovered this fact when dawn started to break, and she saw the walls of the encampment framed by the light on the horizon.

She heard a call go up from the walls as she turned and ran in the opposite direction, towards what she hoped desperately was a water source, a place where she might conceal her trail or even swim downstream to put more distance between her and her pursuers.  She made it about 100 meters before she came upon the hunting party.

They were on foot, and the worse for wear having, apparently, been hunting for her throughout the night.  They had swords at their belts, and dark circles under their eyes.  More than one rolled their eyes or offered thanks to the heavens, and to the Tyrant, at the sight of Mira.  With no way forward, and no way back, Mira chose left, and ran.

She did not get far.  She was quick, but her legs weren't long enough, and at least two of them still had energy left to chase her down.  She managed to wriggle out of the control of the first, enough to wrap herself around his right arm and break it at the elbow, but the second kicked her in the side and knocked the wind out of her while the first was cursing and screaming on the ground.

“Alright you stupid whelp,” the man grunted as he yanked Mira roughly to her feet, holding his abdomen.  “Now you'll see what–”  Mira felt a splash of something wet on her neck as the man's words cut off with a low, extended whine.  Mira looked up and saw the tip of a spear, red and dripping, sticking out of the man's mouth.  She backed away as he slid slowly forward off the blade, and his corpse collapsed to the dirt.

Beatrice stepped over the body and leaned in closely, her eyes wide and intense.  “There's a brook a kilometer or so behind you.  Follow behind while I clear a path, then keep running.  Wait for me at the brook.  If one gets past me, cross, and keep moving, I will find you soon.”

Mira nodded, and for the first time in over a week, felt to her core that everything would be alright.

“Then let's go.”

When Beatrice moved, it was not the restrained, human movement she had held herself to for Mira's benefit.  She was a blur, and the staff a whirlwind edged in scarlet as it severed first a throat, then a leg.  By the time Mira reached her teacher and ducked under the staff, treating its reach as a safe haven, three of her pursuers were bleeding on the ground, dead or dying.

As the trees began to thin, Mira slowed and turned.  Beatrice was facing at least thirty men, and who knew how many more would emerge from the encampment.  Mira could go back, she could help, she was trained…

One of them tried to rush past Beatrice towards Mira.  Even at a distance, Mira could see the puff of red emerge from his chest as he rose into the air, flopping like a speared fish as Beatrice shouted.

“RUN!!! ”

Mira ran.

****

Mira stopped when she reached the brook, and waited by the rushing water.  The land was clear beyond, pasture and rolling hills.  It was actually quite beautiful in the morning sunlight, with the clouds overhead.  She could almost forget the woman behind her, fighting off who knew how many soldiers.  Alone.

She shouldn't have listened.  She should go back.  She needed to go back.  She wasn’t as good as her teacher, not yet, but she could still fight, she could do SOMETHING, she could–

The air before her ripped asunder in red-golden hues, like oil on water if the only colors that existed were the colors of fire.  From nothing came something impossible, enormous wheels or rings connected to nothing, spinning and rotating within and around each other and golden except for the eyes, every inch of them covered in eyes, and behind or in the midst of the wheels a single rounded flame, an empty disc, and from the flame tendrils of reddened light sprouted and arched out to the sides in clusters like wings, six of them, and a voice came from the thing that shook the Universe and it said 

BE NOT AFRAID

And Mira was so terrified that she couldn’t scream, her throat seized up and she started to cry before she heard the thing … chuckle?

“My goodness, I do love your religious iconography.  Well, not yours, I suppose, not anymore.  But what a wonderful concept, a form like this, all physical impossibility, from your perspective, anyway, and the tortured language and such.  Magnificent.  And you, little girl.  What’s your name?”

The thing spoke with no mouth, its voice reverberating inside Mira’s mind, but wheedling now, almost slimy, and she said nothing, would give this thing nothing.

“Ah, Mira, what a lovely name.  And such fascinating company you keep, Mira.  Your parents must be so proud of you.  Oh, no memory of them?  Curiouser and curiouser.”  A few of the tendrils detached from the wing-forms and their ends began to drift towards her and she retreated until her back hit a tree and the thing followed and she couldn’t move, knew she couldn’t escape.  “Let’s take a look inside and see what we can see, shall we?”

One of the tendrils pierced her abdomen and she opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out, though she still felt tears running down her cheeks.  The tendril pulled back, pockmarked and leaking something that looked like droplets of fire.  “Oh my.  Isn’t that special.  You’re a spicy one, aren’t you?  I can’t wait to see what other surprises are hiding in this flesh.”  And then four more tendrils joined the first one, which had regained its form, and they all five plunged into her belly and it hurt so much and there was so much blood that Mira knew she was going to die.

She still couldn’t scream, though, which is how she knew it wasn’t her voice that shrieked “NOOOOOOOO!!!” as a familiar chain and blade, now glowing brilliant blue, shot through the disc in the center of the Angel and pulled back and the barb of the blade caught on the disc, the Halo, and ripped it away so that it flew towards her and lodged in the wood of the tree above her head as the Angel screamed, and Mira knew it let her go because all of a sudden she was lying on the ground.

“URIEL!!!”  It sounded like her teacher’s voice, her teacher was here, it was going to be alright.

Except she could feel that it wasn’t, there were pieces of her missing, spilling on the ground, and Mira knew she was still dying.

“YOU’RE LATE, MAGGOT! ” exulted the Angel.  Mira was lying on her side with her head upslope, away from the brook, but she saw a glowing blue flash as her teacher flew past her towards the Angel Uriel, and then a great sound like a million geese honking at once and the air rippled high above her and the top of a nearby tree burst into splinters.  The sound came again and again, and the air rippled lower now, and she could see the blasts turn to dust the trunks of more trees, and what was left of them toppled to the ground and rolled slowly down towards the water.  “STAND STILL!!” Uriel bellowed.

She tried to lift her head, to turn and look at what was happening, but her head was so heavy, and moving was so hard.  She heard several soft impacts, then a louder thump.  “There you are, right where you belong, you filth.”  Something sounded like choking.  She mustered all her strength and turned her head and saw the Angel hovering over her teacher.  It had her legs and her right arm pinned to the ground with three tendrils apiece, and two more wrestled with her left arm as it shoved another tendril down her throat and gloated as her teacher struggled for air in vain.  “All that stolen strength and you’re still nothing but pathetic rotting meat, breathing air through just the one hole, not even any redundancy.”  It made a sound like someone clicking their tongue in contempt.

“No…” Mira whispered.  Her teacher was dying.  She had to help.  She had to do something.  She shifted her head slightly and raised her eyes.  The sharp edge of the Halo had let gravity pull it down through the tree so that it was only half a meter above the ground, the wood around it blackened and flaming in places.  She could reach it, she wouldn’t even need to stand.  She just needed to get a little closer…

“Do you know what I’m going to do with your corpse, maggot?”  Uriel ranted behind her.  “I’m going to have it stuffed, divinium and all, and I’m going to show it to your precious Apostate right before I rip out her AAAAAUUUGGGGHHH !!!”

Mira couldn’t let herself hope, or turn.  She had to keep going.  A portion of one of the Angel’s rings flew across her vision, accompanied by another scream, as it dissolved into glowing red-gold fluid and splattered against a tree.  “NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONO!!!!”  Uriel’s screams were punctuated by sounds like metal snapping, like glass shattering, and by bits of glowing matter flying through the trees and liquefying.  Mira continued to crawl forward.

She reached out her arm and felt her fingers, slick with blood, slip against the outer edge of the Halo.  It was so warm.  Her fingers slipped off once, twice, then she caught the inside of the ring and pulled it close to her chest, so, so warm, and the rest of her was so cold, as she lay face down and felt the grass tickling her face.  She could see a grasshopper chewing on a leaf.  Hello, little friend.

Further down the slope, Uriel had stopped screaming.  In the relative quiet, Mira could hear her teacher’s quiet sobs, punctuated by impacts against the ground, and the glow of bright things flying and casting their light on the grass.  Eventually, the impacts stopped.  The scream Mira’s teacher let out then was different from most of the screams Mira had heard in her life.  It reminded Mira of the time poor Daniel’s wife and baby died of pneumonia a few winters back.  When Mira asked why he screamed like that, the Holy Mother had said Daniel felt like his whole life was gone, that everything that mattered to him was lost, and the only thing that would help was time, and living.  Mother said she knew that from experience.

The sound of her teacher’s wails and great, choking sorrow got closer.  “Mira, Mira, no no no no, God, please, please, no…”

Mira saw her teacher’s shadow on the grass and the blue glow of her tattoos and Mira tried to say “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s going to be alright, I can save you now,” but her lungs weren’t working properly.

Her teacher’s sobs grew more ragged.  “Where, where, please God, please, I can’t, I never even, oh God, help me, PLEASE…” and the sound of her teacher’s grieving grew quieter and then louder and then quieter again as she scrambled up and down the hill looking for something, and Mira wanted to say “It’s OK, you didn’t lose it, I have it here, it’s safe with me,” but her pesky lungs just wouldn’t work.

Mira used the last of her strength to roll over onto her back.  She wanted to see the sky.  It was so blue, and the clouds were so fluffy and white.  It made her grateful to be alive.  She hugged the Halo close to her chest, and it felt like the Halo was hugging her back.  

And then everything was bright.

Chapter Text

I think my favorite thing about it is that I was right and everyone else was wrong.  Everyone else gets to have a bad girl phase, but not me?  AND he was trying to save the world?  But you all give her too much grief for it, and it's not even really her fault.  You're not yourself once Reya gets her claws in you.  She feels…that is to say, wherever she is, if she's still alive, I'm sure she's extremely remorseful.  And irritating.  And hot.  You're not still recording this, are you? 

-Brother Carlo's Commentaries of the Demon

Mira opened her eyes.  The trees were gone; that was the first thing she noticed.  The second was that she didn't hurt anymore.  She blinked in the dim orange and purple light of a falling or rising sun and let her hands drift over her belly.  No holes.  No blood.  No pain.  Her shirt felt stiff.  She felt the flakiness of dried blood beneath.

As she shifted, she heard motion to her right.  She turned her head, and saw her teacher kneeling next to a pile of wood, looking at her.  Beatrice looked as impassive as ever.  Except for the redness of her eyes.  And the tracks of clean skin running through the dust on her cheeks.  And the fact that her tattoos were glowing softly, light blue against her skin.

It was the last fact, and what it implied, that caused Mira to sit up.  She flinched with anticipated pain, but there was none.  “Where is the Halo?”

Beatrice nodded in Mira's direction.  “In you.  In your…”  Beatrice swallowed, then moved her hand in a circle over her chest.  “It's not supposed to be there.  We never … we always put it in the back.  I didn’t know if it could even work … how are you feeling?”

Mira tensed her abdomen, twisted from side to side.  “Good?  I think good.”  She huffed a laugh that was more than tinged with anxiety.  “So what, am I a Halobearer now?  Are we going to practice phasing through–”

“No.”  The word cut through the air, and the start of Mira’s fantasies.  “You cannot use it.  Reya could send a tarask, more than one.  The more of its power you use, the easier it is for them to find you.”  Beatrice looked down.  “I need to take you somewhere safe first.  I was planning to go anyway, once the snows melted, but we can’t wait any longer.”

Beatrice turned back to the wood pile and began to build a fire.  “I failed you, Mira.  I’m sorry.”

Mira shook her head, though Beatrice was no longer looking at her.  “It’s not your fault they found us.  Besides, you saved me.”

Beatrice shook her head.  “I have failed you in so many ways.  I would pray for your forgiveness, if I still could.  When you come to understand.  But I will have to hope instead.”

Mira didn’t know what to say to that.  When she went to sleep that night, Beatrice was still awake standing guard.  And when Mira awoke the next morning, Beatrice hadn't moved.

****

Mira tried not to use the Halo, but she didn't know how.  Using it, or not using it, seemed instinctive, unconscious.  She tried also not to be resentful, but didn't know how to do that either.  Not when every day her teacher looked at her with a mixture of nervousness and anger when Mira didn't need a break to rest her legs, not even once.  Not when a falling branch fell through Mira, head to toe, without her feeling a thing, and Beatrice looked at her as if she had slapped her, or said a bad word, or something.

As the days passed and they pushed further east, into the mountains, Mira’s resentment grew.  This was the most amazing thing that ever happened to her.  One of the most amazing things that ever happened to anyone.  She had a Halo.  For the first time, she was sure, she was just as fast and as strong as Beatrice.  Maybe even faster, stronger.  She was sure she could learn to do spectacular things.  She could help people in ways she'd never dared to imagine, keep her people safe.

Even that dream seemed small now.  She could keep everyone safe, if she learned enough.  If Beatrice, or whomever they were going to see, taught her enough.  She could fight an Angel with this power, and win.  Maybe she could even help defeat Reya (though she had less of an idea of what that would look like; her conception of Reya was, at its most detailed, an ethereal glowing woman, and who knew how someone would go about fighting her?).

It occurred to her sometime on the fourth day that, perhaps, Beatrice didn't intend to let her keep the Halo at all.  She had read that the Halo sometimes rejected unworthy bearers, or that it could be removed from someone's body with a special tool.  Was that where Beatrice was taking her?  To someone who could remove the Halo, and give it to someone more worthy? 

That made too much sense to Mira.  There had to be dozens of Sister Warriors in the world who could make better use of a Halo than her.  Who already knew how to fight, and had some idea of how to use its power, and how to limit it.  Why would they let such a powerful tool stay with her?  Would it hurt, if they removed it?

Beatrice wasn’t helping any.  Their evening training sessions might as well have never been.  Beatrice would barely look at Mira, in fact.  Or speak to her.  It almost made Mira wonder whether it was her own fault, for getting captured.  Whether she was to blame for the situation.

Then there was the fact that, as far as Mira could tell, Beatrice hadn't slept in days.  Maybe since they set out after Uriel.  Maybe before then.  How long could a person stay awake if they were sort of a tarask?  Mira had no idea.  It seemed to her like the sort of question that no one would know the answer to.  Maybe Mira would be the first.

Maybe a Jillian Salvius would have documented the progression.  How darkness under the eyes turned to redness in the eyes.  How Beatrice started to twitch at the slightest sound, then at none.  How she pinned a rabbit to a tree at fifty meters with a throwing knife and apologized for it.  How she started to mumble to herself.  But Mira had nothing to write with, even if she were so inclined.  So she just watched.  And every night, Beatrice stood guard when Mira fell asleep.  And every morning, Beatrice was standing guard when Mira opened her eyes.

****

Beatrice broke her silence on the fifth evening.

“When we get there, things will be different.”

“Do you know I hate it when you do that?”  Mira hadn’t really intended to say it, but she was so desperate to say anything, and so suddenly angry.  And so the first thing that came to her mind emerged from her mouth and flew to Beatrice with great force.

Beatrice paused with her mouth open.  “Hate what?  What am I doing?”

Mira rolled her eyes.  “Things will be different, do you listen to yourself sometimes?  It’s like you don’t want me to know anything.  You know I can tell when you’re hiding something, right?  I just check to see if you’re still breathing, and when you are, I know ‘oh, she’s hiding something.’  It’s like you just go around collecting deep dark secrets so you can act really mysterious.  Or maybe they’re not so deep and dark!  Maybe you accidentally headbutted the first girl you kissed and everyone made fun of you or something!  I don’t know!  But I hate it.  If you don’t want me to know something, fine, but you don’t need to keep dangling these little crumbs in front of me like a little kid saying ‘I know something you don’t know!’  Just keep it to yourself and don’t say anything!  You’re really good at that!”

As Mira ran out of breath, she looked down at the ground as she felt her face get hot.  She had never shouted at a grown-up like that, and certainly not one of her teachers.  She thought about running, or maybe it would be better to walk away slowly.  There wasn't anywhere to go, not really.  Maybe just out of sight for a while.  Behind a bush or something.

She wondered if she should apologize.  If Beatrice taking the Halo away was a possibility, but not a certainty, then this couldn't have helped Mira’s chances.  They, Beatrice and whomever, probably wanted someone who would follow orders, not someone who–

“Mira?”

Mira thought about looking up.

“Mira, it's OK.  I'm sorry, I … Mira, would you look at me please?”

Her teacher sounded exasperated, but not in an angry way.  Mira took the chance and looked up.  Beatrice didn't look angry.  She was actually smiling a little.

“I'm sorry.”  It came out softer than Mira intended.

“It's OK.  You're right.  I’ve always been … closed off.  My parents taught me to be seen and not heard.  When I escaped them, I became a nun, and then a Sister Warrior, and was trained to follow orders, to keep the mission secret.  And now, now I live a life where if I say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, the people I care about could be imprisoned or killed.”  She took a deep breath.  “But you are not them.  And if I have difficulty being open, that is not your fault.”  She looked Mira in the eyes.  “Do you understand?”

Mira nodded.  “Yes.”

Beatrice nodded back in relief.  Mira had difficulty adjusting to the soft glowing patterns on her neck, and her hands.  In the firelight, framed by darkness, it made her teacher seem unreal, otherworldly.

“Good.  Good.  I will … try to do better.  We are going to see…”  She trailed off, and looked up at the sky.  Mira watched a tear fall from her cheek.  “I'm sorry I'm such a coward.  She can explain better than I can.  I've already kept too much back.  As you say.  Only I did it on purpose because I don't know how … there are some things I don't know how to say.  I am asking too much to ask you to wait a little longer, I know, but I beg you to be patient a little longer.  Please.  And she will explain everything, and I will hope you can forgive me for … for everything.”

Mira stared at her teacher and tried and failed to control her breathing.  “What does that mean, ma'am?”  Beatrice just shook her head.  “What does that mean!?”

“You should get some sleep.  Two more days, at this pace, over this terrain.”

****

“Are you going to take it out?  Is that where we're going?”

Beatrice stumbled and caught herself against a mossy rock.  “Why would you…no, of course not.”  She was growing more hoarse every day.  Mira wondered how long she would sleep when they finally arrived at…wherever they were going.

Mira shrugged.  “They're really rare, and powerful, and maybe it's better if you have someone trained, someone who knows what they're doing…”

Beatrice shook her head.  “No.  The Halos don't accept every Bearer, so there's no guarantee that it would take someone who wasn't you.  And…”  She hesitated, then looked over at Mira with something wild around her eyes.  “I've never seen a Halo removed from the front.  It could…if it's lodged near your heart, I don't…”  Beatrice's breathing sped up and deepened.  “No one is going to take it from you.  Not while I draw breath.”

****

By the time they arrived, Beatrice was visibly shaking, constantly.  Mira half wanted to reach out and check her forehead for fever, but she was more than half afraid of what Beatrice would do if someone tried to touch her in this state.  It had been over a week since the brook, since Mira got the Halo.  If Beatrice had genuinely not slept since then…

“We're almost there.  Almost there.  Just through this gap…”  Beatrice's voice was a thin rasp, and Mira wondered whether she was still thinking clearly.  What would Mira do if she wasn't?  Beatrice was the only one who knew where they were going.

They made their way through a narrow gap in the mountains.  The pass was shadowed, and gray stone reached up to the sky on either side of them.  Ahead, though, over Beatrice's shoulder, Mira could see a brilliant blue expanse, and impossibly green grass in the light of the afternoon sun.

Beatrice stumbled as they reached the light and fell to her knees.  Mira bent down to help her up.  It bothered her that Beatrice was smiling. 

“Ma'am?  We have to keep moving, right?  We can't–”

A loud bark interrupted her, and was followed by another.  Mira turned her head and saw two large dogs, one straw colored, one the deep brown of damp soil, running towards them across the field, their tongues flapping wildly.  She stood up and braced herself but the dogs ignored her.

Mira watched as the dogs pounced on her still-kneeling teacher and began furiously to lick her face as she giggled and wept.  Beatrice soon lost her balance and the dogs took turns nuzzling her face and hands as she scratched and rubbed their ears and faces and laid in the grass.

After a while, the brown one turned to Mira and began to sniff at her hands.  She started and tucked her behind in as the dog sniffed it and continued circling her.  It let out a soft bark and began licking Mira’s hands while the other dog performed the same ritual, both their tails wagging wildly.

“Hi.  Hi there.”  Mira scratched experimentally behind the ears of each, and was rewarded by the firm press of the dogs’ heads against her.  “What are your names?” she asked, just before the dogs leapt onto her chest and toppled her to the ground.  She scrunched up her face as they licked relentlessly at her.

“Matteo!  Inês!”  A woman's voice called from down the hill, and the dogs followed it after a few more licks to Mira’s face.  

As Mira sat up, she saw Beatrice smiling at her with wet cheeks.  “They like you.  Come on.”

They both stood up, and Mira saw a figure further down the meadow in a wheelchair, and behind her in the distance a cottage.  The dogs were prancing around them, and as Mira got closer she saw it was a woman with brown hair hanging below her shoulders.  Even closer and Mira realized she recognized the woman's face from the photograph in Beatrice’s home.

Mira almost tripped as a gray cat wrapped itself around and rubbed itself against her leg, purring loudly.  Beatrice put a steadying hand on Mira's back and gently urged her forward.

As they got closer the woman's eyes flickered past Mira to her teacher.  The woman's eyes narrowed and her mouth tensed as she looked down to waist level, then back up again, but the tension left her face when she turned her eyes back to Mira.

The woman smiled brightly, and as they got within a few meters Mira could see her eyes shining wetly.  The woman pushed off against the arms of her chair and stood slowly, unsteadily.  The three of them stood there for several moments in silence as Mira waited for the woman, or for Beatrice, to say something.  The woman's smile dimmed a bit as Mira stared, until eventually Mira asked “Who are you?”

The woman’s smile shrank into itself further, and she glanced at Mira’s teacher.  Beatrice shook her head slightly in the corner of Mira’s vision, and the woman turned back and took a deep breath.  “My name’s Ava.  I’m…”  The woman shook her head quickly and looked down before meeting Mira’s gaze again and continuing.  “I’ve wanted to meet you for a really long time, Mira.”

She held out her hand, and Mira stepped forward and reached out to shake before she processed the words, before she had time to wonder why this person would have wanted to meet her, how she could even know who Mira was, and then their hands touched—

and

the

world

went

away

like a curtain dropped over it, or the world was the curtain that fell, and took the grass and the mountains and the cabin and the dogs and the open sky, and she was somewhere else.  She stood in an enormous sunlit courtyard, sandy columns and walls all around her, light gray square stone tiles underfoot, a stone altar or tabernacle in the center framed by short columns of its own.  All around were women in dark clothing.  Armed women.  There were mats scattered throughout the space, they had been sparring, but now they were all staring at Mira.  She looked to her side and her teacher was there, staring back with tears in her eyes and a hopeful smile.  She looked so soft, and it took a moment for Mira to realize that at least part of it was the tattoos.  Her teacher didn’t have any.

Mira turned and saw a woman speaking to her, and for a moment she imagined the woman held a cane, almost saw a scar across the woman’s right eye, but then it was gone, just a daydream, or a memory.  The woman was smiling and reached out to embrace her.  “My dear, dear girl.  We’ve missed you so much.  Welcome back.”

Mira moved her mouth, but the voice she heard was Ava’s, speaking words Mira didn’t mean to say.  “It’s good to be back.”

The woman stepped back from Mira/Ava and said “Under normal circumstances, I would give you all the time in the world to spend with Beatrice and recover from your ordeal, but time is of the essence.  We’ll need to debrief you and get right to work if we want to have a chance to stop Reya.”

Once Mira had made the mistake of climbing the church tower without proper ear protection when the bell rang one o’clock.  The sound had been deeper than she expected, had vibrated her to the bones, had pressed painfully into her ears.  The Tyrant’s name rang out like a thousand church bells, rocking her soul-deep, until something tore and she found herself standing outside of Ava, to the side, watching the scene unfold.

Ava was standing before her, glowing.  It started in her back, but it rapidly suffused her skin.  “Why would you say that?”  Ava’s tears refracted the glow.  “Why would you say that, Mother?!??”   Her voice became a wail, as the woman turned back.

Mira watched as Ava turned to look at Beatrice, but the brightness didn’t turn with her, and for a moment there were two Avas occupying the same space, one brilliant light with a face in a rictus of rage, the other flesh, facing Beatrice with a soft smile on her face.  And Mira felt her mouth moving in time with Ava’s, and they spoke as one: “Don’t be afraid, Bea.”

Then Mira was looking out once more from Ava’s eyes, and watched and felt as the woman Ava called Mother was struck by light and impossible heat, and disintegrated in a blast of dust and ash.

Then the women all around her were screaming, and running, and kneeling as tears flowed down their faces and Bea was doing the same, and Mira felt someone else’s heart break and–

the 

world

came

back.

“You.”  Mira barely breathed the word.

Ava’s face pinched in concern.  “What?”

“It was you.  I saw you, you…”  She swallowed bile.  “You killed her.  You called her ‘Mother’ and you killed her.  You’re the one who…”  She stepped back.

Ava’s face went ashen as she slowly lowered her hand and sat back down.  She suddenly looked very small.  “Yeah.  I did.  I’m really sorry.”  Mira felt her muscles tense to run, but Ava rolled herself about a meter back, then turned and began to push herself slowly back to the cottage with her head down, the dogs trailing after her and nuzzling at her hands and feet.

Mira turned to her teacher.  “Why did you bring me to…to her?”

Her teacher looked stricken.  “Because you’re probably safer here than anywhere else in the world.  Because she can teach you what you need to know, far more than I can now.  Because I needed to see her, and she needed to see you.”

Her teacher sucked in a breath.

“Because I love her.”

Mira’s teacher turned then and followed the Betrayer of Humanity to the cottage.  Mira waited for a time, conflicted, then followed after in the trail of the woman who destroyed the world.

****

She stilled when Beatrice touched her shoulder.

“How about just some chamomile?”

Mira watched as the Betrayer grabbed Beatrice’s hand and rubbed her thumb over it gently, then kissed and pressed her cheek against it.  “Yeah.  Yeah, OK.”

The Betrayer didn’t let go as she led Beatrice around the kitchen.  It was large, and old, made of materials that were hard and patterned in ways Mira didn’t recognize.  The whole house was well-preserved, like no avalanche or flood or fire or storm had touched this place since the Fall.  A gap in the wall left an unobstructed view from the kitchen into the living room, where Mira stood.

When the tea was finished, the Betrayer placed a mug on a tray, the tray in her lap, and rolled herself into the living room.  Beatrice’s hand never left her shoulder, and the Betrayer leaned into it thoughtlessly when her hands were not free to grab ahold of it.

“Here you are,” she said as she placed the tray on a long, low, wooden table in the living room that divided the main sitting area between two couches, a puffy-looking chair, and the fireplace.  She looked at Mira as if she was going to say something else, then changed it.  “I really want to talk to you more, but I think Bea and I need to chat upstairs first, OK?”  Mira nodded.  

The stairs up were by the front door, and Mira watched as the Betrayer slowly stood up from her chair and grabbed a cane by the steps.  It was metal, with four feet at the bottom with black pads at the end, which Mira imagined made it rather sturdy.  Beatrice wrapped an arm under the … under Ava’s other arm and around back wordlessly, and helped her in her slow procession up the stairs.

There was hair everywhere.  That was Mira's first impression as she truly took in the room around her for the first time.  There were at least two more cats living here, an orange one lounging on top of the bookshelf, and a multi-colored one had taken up the comfortable-looking chair.  The dogs, Matteo and Ines, jumped up onto the sofa next to Mira and placed their heads in her lap as she drank her tea.  There was no noise in the room, other than the soft sound of the dogs breathing, which is how Mira was able to hear the conversation in the room above her, barely muffled by the ceiling, once the slow clop of feet on wood ceased.

“You didn’t tell her.”  A pause.  “Why didn’t you tell her?”

“I assume you’re going to?”

“Of course I am, Bea.  Wasn’t that the whole point?”

“It was a mistake.  We should have left her with Mary.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“She almost died.  Maybe she did die.  I love her so much, and I let her be captured, and Uriel killed her in front of me, I let her die … I let her…”  Mira heard her teacher break down into great choking sobs.  “If he hadn’t had a Halo, she’d be dead, I failed her, I failed both of you, I can’t…”  More sobbing.  “What kind of mother am I?”

Mira felt herself tremble as her tears started to fall.  Saw her hand shaking as she leaned over to set the tea back on the tray and almost dropped it, spilled only a little.  The dogs nuzzled her and she took what comfort she could from the simplicity of their concern as her mother's sobs slowly subsided.

She couldn't wrap her head around what she had heard, and she hated it.  Her emotions started with pain; her parents weren't dead, at least one of them wasn't.  She had given Mira up, then lied to her about it.  She didn't want Mira.

Except she was here now.  Did she want to take it back?  Skip thirteen years of Mira’s life and start over?  It didn't work like that, and her…Beatrice knew it didn't work like that.  Clearly.  Is that why she had lied?  Why she hadn't said anything? 

Mira hated her for leaving.  Hated her for hiding behind “I'm a coward.”  This unstoppable warrior who fought an Angel single handed and won.  And Mira was supposed to believe she was scared?  Too scared to tell the truth to someone she claimed to love?

That was the worst part.  That she said she loved Mira.  When did that start?  Not when she was born, apparently.  Or while she was off training other students, or building her little life in the foothills in the village with Chanel and Hans.  Or maybe it was all some awful test.  Maybe Mira wasn't worth the trouble.

Mira's chest was glowing.  That wasn't good.  She didn't think it was good, anyway.  A bright circle, growing brighter and brighter.  She tried to take some deep breaths, and wished that Beatrice hadn't been so scared or whatever to actually give Mira some advice about what to do if the Halo went off on its own.

She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“It's OK.  Just breathe.  You're doing good.  It reacts to strong emotions.  I would have come down earlier, but I figured you were handling it OK.  At least until I saw the light shining through the floorboards.”  Ava walked through the couch and the part she passed through rippled with golden light as she did.  Then she sat down, like it was nothing.  Like it was normal to walk through solid objects.  Mira looked around and saw the wheelchair was still by the stairs.  The cane was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m really sorry about you finding out like that.  I don’t think Bea understands how bad the soundproofing is in here.”

“She lied to me.”  Mira hadn’t meant for it to come out so hoarse, but it did anyway.

Ava nodded.  “I’m guessing more of a lie by omission.  She has trouble lying outright.  Especially about something like that.”

Mira tried to remember back to their conversation.  “She said she never … so what, she adopted me and then abandoned me?  Or…”  Mira swallowed hard.  “... or you both did?”

Ava started shaking her head before Mira finished speaking.  “No.  No, no, no.  You were … you’re our little miracle.”  She almost winced as she said it, and wiped her eyes.  “Bea and I … I hadn’t seen her in a long time.  And the last time was bad.  I was … Reya still had me, then.  And I missed Bea so much.  And she came back to me and we, um, wow, I don’t know if Mary gave you sex education or what, but we were together, and after …”  Ava chuckled and looked away for a minute, tears still rolling down her cheeks.

“I hadn’t been with anyone else for a long time before then.  It didn’t make sense that I could be pregnant, but I was.  We thought it must be the Halo, there’s no record of it ever doing this, but there wouldn’t be, I mean they were all nuns, they would have to keep something like that quiet, but you came out, and you have her eyes, and you were so contained and calm and patient…”  Ava bit her lip.

“You gave me away.”

Ava nodded rapidly.  “I’m sorry.  I love you more than anything in the world, I loved you then, I never stopped loving you, but … it was bad.  Everywhere.  And we were the only ones who had a chance to stop it.  Even if I wasn’t responsible for … no one else had my experience with the Halo.  My training.  Bea couldn’t just take out her tattoos.  And we couldn’t put you in danger.  I mean, look what happened now, and we’ve been in hiding!  Well, mostly.  And they still found you and …”  Ava shook her head.

“So why did you?  Why now, I mean?”

Ava smiled sadly.  “Because it's getting worse.  I wouldn’t say we're losing, but … we need to do something big or it's going to get a lot worse here.  A lot.  And something big means me and Bea and some other people and doing something that might save everyone or might get us all killed or maybe both.  And we just…”  She looked out towards the kitchen and the windows to the calm fields and mountains beyond.  “We wanted to meet you again.  In case it was our last chance.  We've spent so long hiding, keeping the fact that we were still working together secret.  We thought we could get away with it.  Especially if Bea went, there's no easy way to track her, she could just get you from Mary, and come back here and we could have, we could have at least some time.  And we could get to know you.  Show you that we love you, and we miss you, and …”

It felt like burning in her chest, so hot she worried at first it was the Halo.  “You're such a liar.”  Mira's hands were shaking, though that seemed normal, and fine, at least compared to everything else in the world.

“What?  Mira, I promise–”

“You're not sorry.  You said you were sorry, but you're a liar, and you're not.”

“Mira, I–”

“You wanted to give me away.  You wanted to, and you did, and you'd do it again.  Right?!”  Mira didn't know when she started screaming, or when she had stood up.

The Betrayer was shaking her head, her eyes wide and pleading.  “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Mira, there was no other way, and I wish we could have–”

“STOP SAYING THAT!!!!!”  It had been anger that burned in her chest, before, but now there was light, and a new fire in her chest, warm and powerful and pulsing in time with the blood in her ears.  “I liked you more when I thought you murdered my parents, just like you murdered everyone else!  You abandoned me!!  And you aren't even sorry!!!”

“Mira, I swear, your mom and I are so–”

“Sad.   And that's not the same thing.  It's not the same!!  Sorry means you won't do it again!!!  And you would.   You would abandon me all over again if you had the chance to do it again, so you aren't sorry. You're sad, boo hoo, you're so sad, how do you think I felt!?!?  My whole life!  I had no one!  Do you have any idea what that feels like!?”

The Betrayer was nodding, still sitting straight backed on the couch, tears streaming down her cheeks.  “I do,” she whispered, “I do, I know, I–”

“YOU’RE A LIAR!!!!!!!!”  Mira’s throat was raw, and her cheeks were wet, and she didn't know what the Halo was doing but it felt like she could do anything except stop hurting.  “You don't know, you could never know, because if you knew you would never have done that.  You could never have let me think that.  Just like you would never have abandoned me if you knew how much it hurts to find out that the people who made you didn't want you.”

The Betrayer's mouth had stopped working, maybe the Halo had done that, and Mira was glad because she would have to hear the woman lying anymore.

“I hate you.”

She spat it as she ran and it felt right to run, and it felt like the wall wasn't even there and then she was outside and running in the tall grass and the sun and the grass didn't touch her either until she collapsed sobbing in the middle of the field.  It felt like she couldn't breathe, like her lungs hated the air, like her throat was sealing up to keep it out so that every inhale was a keening wheeze.  A soft weight, warm, furry, nuzzled into her side, and she grabbed for it blindly as she wept.

Chapter Text

Dear Ava,

I love you.  Whatever you are feeling, no matter how much guilt you feel, no matter what you have done, I love you.  Know this, always.  I did what I did because I know you deserve forgiveness.  I know your sins are not your own.  I know you would not have done these things if Reya had not…  Whatever she has done to you, I know that it is still you.  Lilith came back to us; you can too.  I believe in you.  I know you still feel the same about me; I saw it in your eyes.  And I will see it every night, for I dream of nothing but you.  

I have entrusted this letter to Lilith, in the hopes that she will be able to find you more easily than I can.  I would scour the earth to find you, but she can fly and teleport, so I think she has the advantage.  Perhaps her experience with Reya will allow her to reach you in other ways I cannot. 

Please, Ava.  Please come back to me.

Love,

B

Correspondence recovered from the possession of Ava Silva, estimated date of composition 5 B.F.

It was dark when Mira opened her eyes.  She felt something small and cold and wet push forcefully against her cheek, and then again.  She still wasn't sure which dog was which, but the starlight and the moonlight and the light peeking from the cottage windows around the edges of the curtains let her see this was the darker furred of the two.  The golden one was sitting in front of her, its head on its paws, watching as the other woke her up.

“OK, OK, I'm up.”  Both dogs began to pant excitedly and wag their tails as Mira gathered herself and stood.  They followed her closely back to the house, one to either side of her, rubbing against her every few steps.

As she approached, Ava stood up from the front step and moved aside.  Mira smelled something cooking inside, or maybe cooked already.  She made it a point not to look at Ava as she walked by.

“Darling?” Beatrice's voice came from the kitchen.  “Do you think one of us should wake her?  She needs to eat, and she…”  Beatrice trailed off as she looked up, and her expression dropped.  The blue glow of her tattoos brightened as Mira approached.

“You're a liar.”  There was no force behind the words, not even any anger, not really.  Mira had cried it out, and it had left a cavernous something inside her.  She didn't feel much of anything.

“I'm sorry.”

“I guess she already told you how I feel about that?  Or maybe you would have done something different?” Mira didn't want to feel hopeful, to open herself to disappointment and pain again, but she couldn't stop herself.

Beatrice swallowed.  “I would have.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I should have let you stay with Mary.”

Mira closed her eyes.  “Stop.”

“It was selfish, and I'm sorry, I–”

“STOP IT!!!! ”  Mira hated how shrill her voice sounded.  It made her feel like a child.  The room brightened orange against her eyelids as she shrieked.

When she opened her eyes, her chest was glowing brightly.  Beatrice had stopped moving.  Mira looked behind her and saw Ava had paused in the living room, watching her warily.

The golden furred dog barked and followed after Mira.  It jumped up on Mira's chest and licked her face.  Its tail traced an arc that felt perilously close to the counter, and plates arranged with foods Mira had never seen before.

“Inês, down girl.”  Ava voiced the command, but there was no energy behind her words either. 

Mira leaned into Inês’ kisses until the light in her chest dimmed.

****

The food was some of the best she ever had, or she was sure it would have been, if she were able to enjoy it.  They sat at a table off the kitchen that would have seated six once upon a time.  Her…Ava and Beatrice sat side by side across from her.  Ava explained how they found the cottage while Mira put food into her mouth one bite at a time.  Something about a rich someone or other who built the place as a retreat, designed to be independent, something, something, some more things.  Mira didn't have it in her to care.

“You two are gross.”  They were practically sitting in each other's laps.  Mira was pretty sure Ava was right handed, but she was eating with her left so her right arm was free to wrap around Beatrice's left.  To Mira's dismay, her comment didn't seem to bother them.  They looked like they were about to laugh instead.  She shook her head and went back to her food.

“I understand you're upset, Mira,” Beatrice said.  “You have every right to be.  But I'd like you to apologize.”

“For what, calling you gross for being all over each other?”  Mother had told Mira to mind her teacher, but Mother wasn’t here, and hadn’t told her the truth about who her teacher was, and had let Mira think her parents were dead, and so Mira wasn’t so concerned with what Mother had told her to do anymore.

Beatrice’s eyes twitched, right at the corners.  “No.  For shouting at your…your mother.  For shouting at Ava.  For what you said to her.  We’re going to be staying here for some time, and we can at least be civil with each other.”

Mira nodded slowly.  “OK.  I’m sorry.”

Ava and Beatrice looked at each other and let out a breath together.  “Thank you,” said Ava, “apology–”

 “I'm sorry like you're sorry.”  Mira stared at Ava as she said it, then shoved another bite into her mouth.  She didn’t break eye contact, not even when Ava’s mouth narrowed and her eyes bent at the corners like she was about to cry.  Maybe especially not then.

Ava nodded slowly.  “OK.  We’ll start your training tomorrow.  When we’re done, and you have enough to control to hide yourself from a tarask, and to use the Halo without hurting yourself or someone else, you can leave.”

“You mean you can leave.  Wasn’t the whole point that you get to hang out with me and get the mom experience, then leave me all alone again while you go off and save the world?  That was the plan, right?”

A tear slipped down Ava’s cheek.  Beatrice got up from the table and went outside.  

“Yes.  But you don’t have to stay that long.  Beatrice was right, it was selfish to put you through this, and you don’t have to once you’re safe.  Wherever you want to go, you can.”  Ava stood up from the table and grabbed her plate.  “And if all you want is to get away from us, I promise that the faster you train, the faster you get to leave.”

****

“We’ll start with the basics.”  Ava was standing in the field with Mira, a pair of swords sheathed across her back.  Beatrice sat nearby, her chain and blade glowing in the grass while three cats perched on her head and shoulders and Inês and Matteo chased butterflies.  “The Halo makes you stronger and faster, but it takes some practice to access it on purpose.  So…we're going to start with something simple, and then we'll work on some methods to get you greater control.”

Ava looked…less than excited.  Maybe it was guilt, but Mira was worried now.  Beatrice had been normal, more or less, all morning, and if Ava was different from how she usually was, Mira wouldn't know it.  But this seemed different.

“Why are you both looking at me like that?”

Ava and Beatrice shared a look.  “We'll talk about that later today when we get to control.  For now, let's just see how you do naturally.  And if any tarasks appear, get behind whichever of us is closer and let us handle it.”

Mira rolled her eyes and wondered what they could possibly be worried about sharing with her now , after everything.  “So this is more secret than getting killed by an Angel and you being alive and here and divinium and tarasks and wraiths and you two getting ready to go on a mission to win the war once and for all.  Great.  Can't wait to learn the secret of the foot race.”

The corner of Ava's mouth twitched up, which was not the reaction Mira was looking for.  She looked in the distance, towards Beatrice's spear, stuck into the ground as a marker for the finish line.  She had aimed for a hundred meters, and grumbled that they had no tools to measure with precision until Ava had rubbed a thumb over her cheek.  Mira refused to think about how she felt about that.

She and Ava lined up on either side of Beatrice, who was kneeling in what would have been an appropriate pose for meditation if not for the cats draped over her.  She looked ridiculous.

“You look ridiculous.”

Beatrice turned to Mira impassively.  “I'll remember you said so when they decide to use you as a makeshift bed.  Good luck getting them to move.”

“Bea, come on.  Start us off?”

Beatrice breathed in deeply.  “Ready?”

Ava bent down and dropped her fingertips to the ground.

“Set?”

Mira crouched, she had no idea what Ava was doing and wasn't about to try to imitate it, especially as Ava stretched one leg behind her and–

“GO!”

Ava took off a split second faster than Mira, but that stance must have done something for her because she was already several steps ahead.  Mira was a little shorter than Ava, but she was fast, faster than a lot of the grown ups at the Cradle even, so she knew she could catch up, at least if the Halos weren't used.  

Except that wasn't happening.  Even though it didn't seem like Ava was using the Halo, Mira couldn't seem to catch up, even when Ava looked behind her and smiled instead of focusing on the ground ahead of her.  

It was incredibly frustrating.  Mira kept pushing herself harder, faster, for a moment she even would have sworn her chest heated up like maybe the Halo was actually doing something, but no matter how fast she ran, Ava always was a little faster.  Then all of a sudden, Mira took the lead, only to realize it was because Ava had stopped after passing the spear.  Mira slowed down, or tried to.  Her feet somehow became tangled and she ended up falling head first and the ground had never moved so fast.

Her cheek touched earth, and it felt like her face was on fire.  Mira didn't scream; the pain was so great that it went all the way past hurt to a sort of cool numbness, before she was distracted by similar pain in her hands and forearms and the disorientation of realizing her feet were in the air.  She almost screamed then, when she came to a stop, but her throat seized when the pain struck properly and she choked out no more than a wheeze.

She struggled to her knees in time to see Ava almost upon her, and Beatrice racing towards her from downfield, the cats nowhere in sight.  She turned her hands, and watched as the skin sealed up in a half dozen places on both arms.  There was something wrong with her vision on the left side of her face, she was having trouble judging how far away her hands were as she brought them back and forth before her face, then it cleared, mostly.  Everything looked red from that eye, and she blinked at the sting of something sticking to her eyelashes on that side.  She wiped with her hand and it came away crimson.

When she looked up, Ava was staring at her wide-eyed, hand covering her mouth.  Beatrice was crouched down, her back to Mira, hands wrapped around the back of her head.

“Maybe we can practice phasing instead?”  Ava's voice was thinner than usual.

“Phasing won't do her much good if a tarask tracks her.  Or if more than one tracks both of you.”  Beatrice's voice quivered, like she was shivering.

“I can teach her some tricks that would make it useful.  Unless you want her to do another race?”

Beatrice shook her head, still crouched, still not looking up.  “No.  No.  Phasing is fine to start.”

“Mira?  Are you … are you OK?”  Ava had let her hand fall from her mouth, but her eyes were still tense under a furrowed brow.

Mira reached up with her other hand to find skin that felt still wet with blood, but no apparent cuts or other injuries. “I think?  It really hurt, but…what just happened?”

Beatrice promptly stood and began to walk rapidly back towards the house.

“Bea?”

Beatrice waved an arm without looking back.  “I'll be fine.”

Ava's body shifted like she was about to follow, an arm tensed like it was about to reach out, but her feet did not move.  She sighed and closed her eyes.  “So the Halo heals any injury that isn't caused by divinium.  Even so, I think we need to take a break from running.  We'll get you a little more control first, I'm not sure either of us can handle too many attempts at teaching you to stop.”

Mira cocked her head.  “Wait, so I was doing it?”

Ava nodded and smiled, though it was a small thing compared to what Mira had seen from her when they first met.  “You did really good!  But the more momentum you build, the longer you have to give yourself to stop.  And if you don’t, and your feet stop and the rest of you keeps going…”  Ava trailed off and shrugged.  “It could have been worse.  You could have run into a wall.”

“Why would that be a problem?  I can walk through walls now, can't I?”

****

Mira could not walk through walls, as it happened.  At least, not reliably.  Phasing through solid matter other than divinium was, in fact, one of the powers bestowed upon all Halobearers, along with extraordinary strength, speed, and durability.  Others tended to manifest uniquely with each Bearer.

As she sat and slapped her hand against the ground for the fiftieth time in a row, Mira wondered whether she would ever get that far.  This was the lowest risk activity they could think of, and apparently low risk meant “so boring you'll watch the grass grow to take your mind off how boring it is.”

It wasn't that she never succeeded.  Three times her hand had gone through, including the first two.   Ava had offered to talk her through it, but Mira wanted to figure it out on her own.  Her pride was fighting a losing battle with her frustration.

“OK, fine!  Fine.  What's the secret?”  She swung again as hard as she could, and grunted when her hand slid through the ground to the shoulder as she lost her balance and fell.  She enjoyed the success for about two seconds before she realized she was stuck.  She let out a scream against the grass and dirt.

Ava sat down next to her.  “So the Halo responds to your emotions.  When you're feeling something intensely, it affects the Halo.”

“So what, I'm supposed to control my emotions to control the Halo?”  Mira recalled a conversation with the Holy Mother about puberty.  “Basically you’ll run around feeling a lot of big emotions for six years minimum, and nothing will make sense and you’ll get really angry at me for no reason, and then hopefully you get better and we can still stand to be around each other when it’s over.”

Ava shook her head.  “No, actually controlling your emotions is really, really bad.  Well, if controlling means ignoring them or locking them away.  That actually can make the Halo shut down.  It's more about…accepting your emotions.  About accepting the parts that are scary or painful too.  The more comfortable you are with your emotions, with letting yourself feel the ones that scare you, or feel like too much?  The easier the rest of it gets.  And the more power you can get out of it.”

Mira glared, though she felt the effect was lessened by her need to move her head to get a blade of grass out of her eye.  “So the only way to learn how to use the Halo is to ‘accept’ how angry I am with you and act like it's no big deal?  That sounds really convenient.  For you.”

Ava chuckled, but her smile didn't reach her eyes.  “You don't have to act like it's no big deal.  And it's not the only way to do anything, but it makes everything else with the Halo easier.  But in the meantime…can you wiggle your ears?”

Mira jerked her head back enough to feel the ground holding tightly to her arm.  “What?”

Ava laid down next to Mira on her back.  She looked up at the sky as she spoke.  “So when I was seven, I was in an accident.  My mom died, my spine broke, and I couldn't move below the neck almost at all until I got the Halo.  I was in an…a place where none of the people in charge cared about me.  They thought it would have been better if I died.  So I didn't have a whole lot of ways to keep myself busy.”

“One thing I could do was tricks with my head.  I had different roommates at different times, and some of them could do things I couldn't do.  Like whistle, or bend their tongue funny ways. And one of them could wiggle his ears.”

Ava pulled back her hair to expose her ears and, sure enough, they wiggled back and forth, moved almost like they were alive and not even attached properly to Ava's head.  Mira tried not to gawk.

“It took me a while to get the hang of it.  At first I couldn't really do it without moving my jaw and my whole scalp.  Then after a while I could do it without my jaw.  Then without the top of my head.  It's sort of…feeling your way around muscles you've never used on purpose before.  You don't activate the Halo with your muscles, but when you're using it on purpose it feels similar.  Like you're reaching out with your mind to a part of you, and trying to get it to do the one thing you need it to do.  But for now, don't worry about doing just the one thing.  Just work on feeling for it and getting it to do something, then you can narrow it down from there.”

Mira sighed and closed her eyes.  She considered for a moment what Ava had said about accepting her emotions, but she wasn't about to open that door again, not for a while.  So.

She started by tightening her chest and stomach, even though Ava had said that wouldn't do anything.  It felt centering, like it was clear where her focus needed to be.  The Halo was there, slightly warm and humming.  She tried to picture how it felt when she phased through something.  It had happened a few times by accident, a few times on purpose.  She tried reaching for the warmth, the vibration, and felt it reach back as she pulled ….

The earth around her arm cracked as she began to pull out a rough cylinder of earth in which her arm was trapped before her arm slipped free as intended.

Ava clapped and whistled.  “You did it!!!”

Mira buried her face in her hands and was glad there was no one else around to see this grown woman hopping up and down and cheering.

****

“Do you want to hear the story of how we met?”

Ava had a hopeful look on her face as she asked.  Mira assumed it was because she hadn't given more than a one word answer all evening.  The last few days had been … a lot.  Mira had certainly learned a lot, and gotten much better control over the Halo.  Enough to try another foot race today, at least.  Not enough to win.  Accepting her pain felt a long way off.

Even so, Mira was finding it hard to be as angry as she wanted to be, which was furious, as often as she wanted, which was always.  Except around the animals, because they were adorable and loved her more than anything and they hadn't done anything wrong.  Not like her mothers.

It was exhausting, being angry all the time, and the way her parents were around each other hadn't helped.  Ava was bouncy.  Wiggly.  She rocked back and forth, leaned into Beatrice’s eyeline constantly.  And it was like Beatrice melted, all the cold stone exterior disappearing in favor of small smiles and laughs and Mira could swear she saw her teacher actually blushing .

Then there was the time one of the cats was playing with Mira and had telegraphed a pounce and Mira had managed to phase at just the right moment.  The cat had gone flying past the end of the couch and knocked an end table over, along with the other two cats who were piled on top of it.  Ava and Beatrice had looked at each other and said, at the same exact time , “it's a cat-astrophe!”  Mira was practically embarrassed for them.

“Not really,” Mira answered, though without any anger behind the words.  Ava's face fell a bit regardless.  “I feel like you probably exchanged bad jokes for a while and then made googly eyes at each other, and I don't think I can take that while I'm eating.”

Ava's lips quirked up.  Next to her, Beatrice rolled her eyes.  “There's nothing wrong with our jokes–”

“OK, but jokes are supposed to be funny, you know that, right?”

Ava laughed out loud at that.  “Wow.  Ok, so the snark comes from you, clearly –”

Beatrice interrupted by choking on her food.  Ava handed her a glass of water.  “Excuse me?!?  You think I'm the one between us with the smart mouth?”

“Well, your mouth is very OW!”  Ava rubbed her side ruefully as Beatrice pulled her elbow back.  “OK, OK, point taken.”

Mira stared at them blankly.

Ava flushed red and cleared her throat.  “So maybe you could tell us about you?  How have things been with Mary?  You could tell us about your friends, or maybe there's someone special?”  Ava raised her eyebrows in invitation.

Telling her parents about Nadia was the last thing Mira was about to do, until Beatrice cleared her throat.  “NO.”

Beatrice blinked innocently, which was a lie.  “Well I just thought that if you–”

“Don't you dare.”

Ava leaned in disgustingly and squeezed her arms together and batted her eyelashes.  “Pleeeease, Bea?  I'd be so grateful.”

Beatrice blushed and ducked her head and Mira kind of wanted to vomit.  But two could play that game.  

“Well, Mira actually,” began Beatrice, with a slight smirk.

“Mom.”

Both her parents sat up and stared like they'd been startled by a thunderclap.  Mira pouted and opened her eyes extra wide and bent down the outer tips of her eyebrows.  “You aren't going to say anything, are you?”

Ava turned her head and cleared her throat as she moved her hand across her face.  When she turned back, there was something off about her smile.  “Bea, come on, please tell me?”

Beatrice’s throat bobbed and she shrugged.  “Sorry, I can’t think of what I was going to say.”  Her voice was hoarser than usual.

Ava looked aggrieved.  “Bea!  Come on, don’t tell me you’re going to fall for that?”

Beatrice shrugged and cut a slice of duck.  “Slipped my mind, sorry.”

Mira moved her shoulders up and down contentedly, then stopped when she saw both of them staring at her.  Beatrice was biting her lip.  “What.”

Beatrice shrugged and tried too hard to look innocent.  “Nothing.”  Ava was biting fiercely on both lips.

“I don’t…that’s not what…”  Mira gestured in a circle with her fork in Ava’s general direction.  “...that thing she does.  I don’t do that.”

Beatrice and Ava nodded sagely at each other.  “Absolutely not,” said Ava solemnly.

Mira eyed them suspiciously as she slipped two pieces of cauliflower off her plate, then went back to her meal.

“Sooooo…Mira?  Since you’ve gotten Bea not to say anything, what about you?  What would it take to get you to tell me about this mysterious someone?”

Mira shrugged as she surreptitiously fed her cauliflower to the dogs, who seemed to love the stuff.  Mira couldn’t relate.  “I mean, I don’t think you have a whole lot to bargain with…wait.”  She narrowed her eyes at Ava.  “You can fly, right?”

“...I can.  But fair warning, flying was basically the first thing I did unconsciously.  Have you flown yet?”

Mira shook her head.

“OK.  OK. Then probably actual flight is not in the cards…unless you want me to fly you around?”

“Deal!”  Mira reached out and grabbed Ava’s hand to shake it before she could take it back, and the world went away again.

****

The room was unlike any Mira had seen before, with what looked like pale, even stone forming walls and fluted columns and an impossibly smooth and shiny wooden floor with perfectly cut boards creating strange geometric patterns.  She looked up at her hand and white-armored arm as she drove a glowing blue straight sword through a scaled, leathery wing and pinned it to the wall.  The woman the wing belonged to, tall, sharp-lined, and clad in black leather armor, was screaming, or her eyes were, as she struggled to free herself from a chokehold applied by another woman clad all in white, with reddish brown skin and eyes like silver.  The winged woman's right arm was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, and the silver-eyed woman, the Angel , held the winged woman’s left arm against the wall behind her.  The left wing was already pinned to the wall with a glowing blue dagger.

A series of loud noises and shouts came from further down the hall, out of sight, ongoing.  Mira turned right and saw there were bodies, unconscious or dead, scattered around the edges of the room.  She turned in the other direction and saw, in a corner, near a large windowed door that led to a green outdoors and sunlight, a woman with tan skin and long, dark, curly hair pulled back at the base of her neck pushing her hands to the belly of another woman, red leaking around the edges.  It took a moment for Mira to realize she was looking at the Holy Mother.  She looked different with braids, and covered in blood.  Next to them a pale, slight woman with short, dark, curly hair was crouched low, holding her head in her hands and muttering to herself.  A high, loose, near-black collar marked the edge of her skin; the rest of her was covered, down to the fingers.

Mira turned back to the other end of the hall where, between Mira and the noises of a larger fight, was Beatrice.  Her tattoos glowed faintly as she tried to hold at bay what appeared to be a blonde, nearly white-haired man, but by the white of his clothing and the way he moved, Mira knew him for an Angel.

Mira felt herself smile with Ava's lips as she turned back to the winged woman.  “Well, Lil?  Whaddaya think?  Are you enjoying our surprise party?”

The woman, Lil ( Lilith was the name Mira heard in her mind), tried to speak, but the other Angel's hand tightened around Lilith's neck, and no words came out. 

Mira clicked her tongue.  “Shame.”  She turned to her right again, just in time to see the Angel, now lying on his back at Beatrice's feet, raise his hand and the air rippled between him and Beatrice, and then Beatrice was hitting the wall with a loud crack before slumping down to the ground.  The Angel rose and gestured again and again, and it was like a fist made of wind was hammering Beatrice into the wall.  

Mira felt her lips dip into a frown as her vision blurred and unfamiliar words whispered through her mind in a voice she almost recognized.

“ ...never be alone… ”

“ ...and my pleasure… ”

“ ...I won’t… ”

And then so faintly that she thought she imagined it: “ I love you. ”

Her vision cleared as she turned back to Lilith and focused on trying to drive her fists through the woman’s belly, and there was something satisfying ( repulsive ) about the wet sounds of her fists against bloodied leather armor and scaled flesh.

Ava’s lips moved, and Mira heard herself say “Verchiel, let go.  I want to play with her head for a while and you’re in the way.”  When the Angel removed her hand from Lilith’s neck, Lilith’s head lolled forward and she coughed weakly.  A line drew itself in red, slowly, from Lilith’s lips to the floor.  

Mira felt Ava’s hands grab the sides of Lilith’s head roughly, and felt the corners of her mouth quirk up in a smile.  “Do you remember when we first met?”  She leaned in close to whisper in Lilith’s ear.  “You should have killed me.”  She pushed forward, hard and fast, and the sound of Lilith’s skull crunching against the wall was like music ( grotesque ), and she did it again, and again.

Ava’s head turned to the left, and Mira saw that Verchiel was approaching the three surviving women by the windowed door.  The woman with short curly hair and the high collar continued to rock back and forth, crouched on her heels and holding her head, as Verchiel approached.  Mira couldn’t make out what she was muttering to herself, until she hissed sharply to no one “We don’t even know if it works!”

Verchiel chuckled. “Now then.  Which of you would like to watch all your friends–”

The curly-haired woman looked up and her right eye was flame and she opened her mouth and

KILL HIM

her voice was a choir that shook Mira to the bones, and she felt bile rise to her throat.  Verchiel shimmered , like the edges of her body were melting, then snapped back into sharp clarity.  She turned from the women on the ground and ran towards Mira and Lilith and ripped the sword from Lilith’s wing and did not stop and Ava turned her head in time for Mira to see Verchiel run to the other Angel, who was holding Beatrice, bruised and bloody on her knees, by the throat, and slid the cruciform blade through the Angel’s back and out his chest.

The Angel’s essence glowed red-orange along the blue light of the blade as the Angel stared down in disbelief.  It let Beatrice fall with a dull thud as it turned its head.  “Verchiel?  What are you–”

The sword flared brilliant and painful and the Angel screamed as its form burst into shards like glass that scattered across the room before collapsing into dust, and then into nothing.

Lilith, one of her wings now free, pawed uselessly at Mira’s arm, and Mira felt herself, felt Ava, release her grip and step away, watching Verchiel.  Verchiel looked down at the sword, then turned and looked past Mira in horror towards the woman with the glowing eye and her eyes widened and 

KILL HER

Mira felt herself turn, and Ava didn’t understand exactly what was happening, but knew a threat when she saw it.  She felt the Halo flare in her back ( wrong place ) and in an instant she was in front of the woman with the blazing eye and the voice like dying and she felt Ava slam her fist into the woman’s throat.  The fist was scratched and bleeding for a moment before the cuts closed.

When Ava turned them back, Mira saw Verchiel was already nearly upon them.  Every one of Mira’s reflexes screamed at her to move, to grab the wrist and disarm, but she felt Ava move faster than she even could have, though the movements were familiar, but faster, smoother, more practiced.  As she went to grab Verchiel’s wrist, the Angel opened her hand, and Ava slid sideways through the air to avoid a blast that punched a hole in the wall behind her.  Verchiel swung the blade, Mira fell into the floor up to her armpits and swept Verchiel’s legs out from under her.  They struggled on the floor then, where the sword's length made it a liability, first one on top and then the other, until Mira/Ava slipped through the floor unexpectedly and trapped Verchiel against the ground and bashed her head into molten liquid.

While Verchiel’s head began to flow back together, Mira walked over to grab the sword from where it had landed during their struggle, between Mary ( the Holy Mother ) and the curly-haired woman with the Voice and the high collar and the burning eye.  She made her way back to the center of the room, and felt Ava's grim satisfaction that Verchiel’s head was still coming together.

Pain.

Mira turned and saw the glowing blue knife buried in her heel.  Lilith was splayed out next to it, wingless, and still looking far the worse for wear, though it seemed she had managed to reattach her severed arm, somehow.  Mira reached down and pulled out the knife just as she felt something crash into her from behind and knock her off her feet.

She pushed herself up and turned her head, and saw Verchiel standing over her with the blade raised to strike. 

“NOOOOOOO!!!!”

Mira had the strangest sense of familiarity as she heard Beatrice’s scream, and almost thought she was dreaming, as Beatrice crashed into Verchiel and dragged them both to the floor.  Mira knew Beatrice could win, expected it even, until she saw Verchiel’s fist smash into Beatrice’s jaw. Saw how much Beatrice was bleeding.  How little she had left to give.  Saw the Angel raise her blade.

Mira heard Ava's voice whisper from her lips: “No.”

Ava lifted them from the ground, and the Halo flared.  The not-flesh of Verchiel’s back parted easily as Ava shoved her fist into the Angel's torso, and Mira felt Ava reach out, reach in , and channeled all the Halo's energy through her arm, into her hand, and someone was screaming as Ava's hand glowed brilliant and out and the blast ripped the Angel to pieces, and radiant burning droplets of her form scattered about the room.

And then there was nothing left, and Mira felt Ava's body lose sensation everywhere below the neck and slump forward.  Had Beatrice not been there to catch her, Mira was sure Ava's head would have struck the ground.

As it was, Beatrice set Ava down gently.  She lay there on the floor, motionless, unfeeling, and whispered “Bea.”  If Beatrice heard, she did not answer.

Mira had not noticed when the curly-haired woman with the burning eye had retrieved the dagger, or how, but she saw now as the woman walked slowly toward them, holding her throat tenderly, and the dagger glowed bright.

Beatrice turned towards the glow, and stood in the woman's way.  She was only a few steps away now.  Mira couldn't see Beatrice’s face, but her words were quiet with horror.  “What have you done?”

“She needs to die.”  The woman's voice was raspy, and distorted, like two people were speaking over each other, saying the same words.  “For everyone’s sake.  She needs to die.”

“I will rip out your heart before I let you touch her.”  Beatrice's promise was belied only slightly by the tremor of her legs, and her blood leaking steadily to the floor.

Mira felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness wash over her, and knew, suddenly, that she was a monster, that she had killed more people than she could hold in her mind, saw children weeping over the bodies of parents in ruins she had made while laughing, and believed to her soul that she should have died somewhere, alone, bedridden, unmoving, at the end of a poisoned needle.  She felt a tear slide down her cheek.  “Bea.”  She whispered again, but louder, and was heard this time.  

Beatrice stepped back and to the side so she could turn halfway around and keep her eyes on the woman and the dagger.  “Ava?”  Her head half turned, then stopped as the curly-haired woman made as if to move.  “Ava, it's going to be alright.  I'm not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“Let her.”

Beatrice’s head spun around.  “Ava, no.”

The curly-haired woman stood still, and watched.

“I deserve it.  I hurt people, Bea.  I killed so many…I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.”  The tears were a stream now, though she couldn't do anything but try her best to blink them away.  “Just…just let her end it.  I've had all these second chances and what have I…just let her end it.”

“She knows, Beatrice,” two voices said in unison from one mouth.  “This is what has to–”

“Camila, SHUT.  UP.”  Beatrice stared the woman down.

“Just get the damn cuffs, no one has to decide this now.”  Mary ( Holy Mother ) limped over, holding a reddening bandage over her midsection.  “Besides, we need to get the hell out of here.  Lilith, you good?”

“No.”

Mary shrugged.  “See?  Our ride’s good as new.  So get Ava locked up, and we can sort the rest out later.  And Cam, whatever this is, you better have a damn good explanation when we get back, because I want to know that a lot of our Sisters didn’t just die for nothing while you kept this in your back pocket.”

The woman with the longer curly hair who had treated Mary's wounds walked towards Mira/Ava with a grim look on her face and a pair of handcuffs that began to glow blue as she approached.

Mira turned back to Beatrice.  “I'm sorry,” Ava whispered.  “I'm sorry, Bea.  I'm so–”

The dining room came back all at once.  Mira fell to her knees sobbing.  Ava knelt down with her as Beatrice rushed around the table.

“Mira, filha?  What's wrong?”  Mira dimly felt Ava's hands on her face, brushing away tears.

Mira tried to catch her breath and speak in between sobs.  “I saw when you…when you fought, with the Angels, Verchiel and, and the other one, and I was you, and I felt at the end when you wanted to…”  The guilt of acts too monstrous for anyone to bear came back in a rush, the feeling of self-hatred, and Mira broke down again as Ava wrapped her up in a hug.  She felt Beatrice behind her then, hugging both of them as she continued to weep, and Ava whispered to her.

“It’s OK, my love.  I know.  I know.  Mama’s…I’m here, baby.  I’m here.  It wasn’t you.  It’s OK.  It’s OK.”

****

Mira couldn’t remember the last time someone needed to carry her up to her room, much less tuck her in at night.  She didn’t hate it as much as she wanted to.

“I really wanted to go flying after dinner.”

Ava pressed her lips together in a sad sort of smile.  “It’s dark out, filha.  Tomorrow.  I promise.”

Mira yawned.  “OK.  Good night.”

Before she drifted off, she felt a hand caress her cheek and gently tuck her hair behind her ear.  “Good night, baby.  We love you.”

Chapter Text

Dear Mira,

I love you.  I should start out by saying so.  I feel like I’m always writing letters to the people I love just before I leave them.  I just fed you and you’re sitting in your mom’s arms gurgling and cooing and I wish the world was different.  I wish I could hold you every night as you grow up, until you get too big and think it’s not cool to have a mama who cuddles you at night.  My mamãe died before I could get that old, and for a long time I couldn’t feel it when anyone touched me.  I hate that I’m going to have less time with you than I did with her.  You deserve so much more than I can give right now.  But I want you to know that you are our miracle.  That you are loved, and wanted, and your mothers adore you.  Your mom was so so scared, her parents were awful, but now that you’re here she can’t stand to be apart from you.  Neither can I.  

I don’t know how we’ll survive without you.  But just know, that we are watching over you always.  No one will ever hurt you.  We won’t let them.  Your mom is whispering to you, now, from the Bible, I think, “no weapon formed against me shall prosper.”  I don’t know about that.  But the nuns who used to hurt me would read to me about being cursed by God to live, and how I would have died if God loved me.  In the story they told me, the man who was cursed, God would hurt anyone who tried to hurt him sevenfold.  We’ll do that for you.  We would suffer anything, do anything, to keep you safe.  We love you always.

Unsigned correspondence in the possession of Holy Mother Mary, once called “Shotgun”

“So?” Ava asked brightly over morning omelettes; they had no chickens and Mira still hadn't figured out where the food in the enormous basement freezer came from.

Mira rolled her eyes, but she had promised, and she still wanted to fly, and either was better than thinking about the vision from the night before.  She focused on her food, and on flying, and hoped that would make it easier.  “Her name's Nadia.  She's my age.  She's tall, a little taller than you even.  She's really nice.  Like, she felt bad for you, for the things you'd been through, not, not angry.  She's like that, always trying to think about other people and…yeah.  She's got really pretty hair, and….  I don't know.  I really hope she's OK.”

When she looked up, Ava was resting her head on her hand and smiling softly at Mira, her cheek smooshed against her palm.  “Soooooo, how did you two meet?”

Mira felt her face get hot and she looked down again.  “Um, we were really little, maybe three, and Nadia's parents brought her to the Cradle after the Sisters rescued them from some wraith-ridden.  And there was a little play area that Matthieu's dad made out of wood, with a slide and things to crawl on and her parents walked her over to it, and, I mean, I don't remember it, but Holy Mother says Nadia was crying and scared to make new friends and I walked over and gave her a hug and held her hand and walked her around to meet everyone.” 

Ava didn't say anything, but when Mira looked up she thought Ava looked like she was about to cry.  Ava turned and looked at Beatrice.  “Bea!”

Beatrice smiled and stroked her cheek.  Ava leaned into it, even though they were already sitting so close that their legs touched.  “I know, darling.”  Beatrice leaned close beside Ava's ear and whispered, “you should ask to see her sketches sometime.”

“No.”  Mira wasn't embarrassed about her drawing, of course, even if she wasn't as good as she wanted to be, but a deal was a deal, and they hadn't agreed to anything about sketches.

Ava didn't ask to see any sketches, though.  “You can draw?”  There was something about the way she said it that made Mira's face go warm again.

“I mean, I'm not as good as the Holy Mother–”

“MARY can draw!?”  When Mira looked up, Ava's mouth was hanging open, and Beatrice looked…sad?

“Yeah?  She's really good.  She says I'm really good too, but I know I need to keep practicing.  She says someone once told her that it's something anyone can do, they just have to practice…why are you crying?”

Ava looked over at Beatrice, who was gently wiping tears from her jaw.  “Bea?”

“Shannon used to say that.”  Beatrice looked to Mira.  “Shannon was the Warrior Nun before Ava.  She and Mary were…close.  But she was important to all of us.  Sorry, I didn't mean to ruin the mood.”  

Ava leaned over and kissed Beatrice’s cheek.  Beatrice responded by turning and kissing Ava on the lips.

“I'm right here!”

Ava and Beatrice chuckled.

“So did either of you … you know … when you were my age?”

Ava and Beatrice looked at each other.  Ava shrugged.  “I was mostly paralyzed in an orphanage where the nuns, the people in charge, didn't believe in love.  At least, not the kind between people.”

“How come you're not using the wheelchair anymore?  Or the cane?”  It had been bothering Mira since her first day, but she hadn't found the opportunity to ask about it before.

Ava shrugged.  “I learned to turn the Halo's output all the way down a long time ago.  In theory, it's the best way to avoid attracting tarasks.  But when I do that, the Halo doesn't support my nervous system anymore.”  She smiled.  “Believe it or not, what you saw when you got here was big, big progress.  When I started, I could barely move my fingers.  I like to think of it as good practice, for when the war's over.  Now you're here, and you need to learn, so the power goes back up, and Bea and I just have to be extra careful.”

Mira nodded slowly, then turned to Beatrice.  “What about you?”

Beatrice snorted.  “I think I've told each of you, separately, the story of my misadventures in love as a teenager,” Beatrice said.

Ava waved a hand.  “Wait, wait.  But after, you got sent to boarding school, and then you became a nun.  That's a lot of time around a lot of girls, you never…?”  Ava tilted her head forward and raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Beatrice turned ever so slightly pink.  “There were some who were…interested.  But I was very devout and very conflicted, at best.  Traumatized, really.  So nothing ever happened.”

“Until me?” Ava asked. 

“Does that mean each of you were your first…?”  Mira raised her eyebrows.

Ava and Beatrice looked at each other with wide eyes.

“Um…”

“Well…”

“...how about that flight?”

****

The grass was still wet with dew when they headed out into the field.  The cats were chasing butterflies, and the dogs were keeping close to Beatrice, their tails wagging.

“OK, so, let's start by seeing whether this is something you can learn.  Or if it's something you can learn yet, anyway.”

“Ava.”  Beatrice's voice had a slight edge to it.

Ava walked over and leaned up to kiss Beatrice's jaw.  “It's OK.  No big drops.  Five meters?”

Beatrice stood stiffly for a few seconds, then loosened and nodded.

Ava turned back to Mira with a smile.  “You ready, kiddo?”

Mira shifted her weight from foot to foot.  “Uh…yes?  What exactly am I supposed to do?”

Ava walked up to Mira and looked her up and down seriously.  “I think…yeah, I'm gonna grab you under your arms, and come up with me…”

Mira felt pressure on her sides as Ava picked her up, and up, and up, as her feet dangled below her.  They were barely moving, but as Mira looked down and saw the ground several meters below her, a jolt ran through her, part fear, but part something else, a sharp sort of excitement that she had never felt before.

“Whoa.”  Mira started to laugh, then stopped herself, nothing about this was particularly funny, but her body wanted to anyway.  After a few moments, she gave in.  When she looked back up at Ava, Mira saw that Ava had tears running down her cheeks to a wide smile.

“So, do you want to try by yourself?”

Mira shook her head rapidly.  “No!  I mean, yes, I just…I need a minute.”

Ava nodded.  “It's ok.  I've got you.  Take your time.  I'm not going to drop you unless you're ready.”

Mira took several deep breaths, in and out.  She told herself it would be fine.  It wasn't that far, after all. “Ok…ok.  I think I'm ready.”

Ava nodded.  “Do you want me to drop you from here?  Or do you want me to go higher and catch you after a bit if you don't fly?”

“From here.  Please.”

Ava nodded.  “OK.  Start by warming up the Halo.”  Mira did as she was told, reaching out in a now-familiar way and feeling a warmth begin in her chest, soft and waiting.  “Three, two…”  Ava let go.

Mira had enough time to yelp before she hit the ground.  The fall was probably enough that she would have twisted her ankle once upon a time, but she didn't feel any pain, or even lose her footing.  She stomped her foot in frustration.  “I want to try again.”

Ava floated down and lifted her.  It wasn't until the fourth try that Mira insisted that Ava take her higher to drop her.  Ava took her high enough that Mira couldn't see Beatrice anymore, which meant it was also high enough for her to get a good long scream in before Ava caught her.

When they landed, Beatrice had her face in her hands, her head down.

Mira looked at Ava in confusion, then back at Beatrice.  “What's wrong?”

“Bea?”  Ava walked over to her.  “Hey.  Hey, it's OK.  I'm sorry, I should have asked if…I'm sorry.”  Ava reached out gently and Beatrice fell against her, trembling, her face still hidden.

Mira took a step closer.  “No, really, what's wrong?”

Ava stroked the back of Beatrice’s head; Mira still couldn’t see her face.  “Shhh, it’s OK.  It’s OK.  She’s OK.  I got her.  I’ve got you both.  It’s OK.”  She looked at Mira.  “I, um…I died that way, once.”

Beatrice’s voice cracked.  “It was a long time ago, it’s not…I shouldn’t still…”

Ava turned back and kept stroking the back of Beatrice’s head.  “It's OK.  It's OK.  We'll stop and–”

“NO!”  Beatrice pulled away suddenly.  Then, more quietly, “No.  Mira wanted to go flying with you and she…I just need a few minutes.”

Ava nodded slowly.  “OK.  Do you want me to hold you for those minutes?”

Beatrice nodded, and Ava wrapped Beatrice up in her arms again.

****

Mira passed the time practicing and playing with Inês and Matteo.  She would leap a few dozen meters powered by the Halo, then wait for them to catch her, then sprint a few dozen more meters, then wait, then phase when they tried to jump up and lick her face.  The dogs loved it. The cats gravitated towards Beatrice, stretched out on the grass, her head lying in Ava's lap as they all watched Mira.  Lara and Curly preferred to cuddle up and purr, but Mo, the calico, who was the youngest of the three, eventually tried to join in the game (she loved when Mira phased, or at least Mira thought she did).

Beatrice sat up slowly.  “I'm alright now.  Go on.”

Ava kissed her lips gently, which wasn't much less gross than their normal kissing, and handed Beatrice her twin swords, which she had unstrapped from her back earlier, for safekeeping.  

“Ready?”

Mira nodded.  “So…where do I go?”

Ava turned around, kneeled, and pointed a thumb at her back.  “Climb on, and wrap your arms around my shoulders to hold on.”

Mira did, and then held on a little tighter and wrapped her legs around Ava's midsection as Ava stood up.

“Do you want to count us down?” Ava asked.

Mira smiled, and felt an odd vibration in her chest, a warm sort of pulse in counterpoint to her heartbeat.  She could almost swear she could feel it matched by something outside, against her skin.  It felt oddly satisfying.  “Three!  Two!  One!  Goooooo!!!”

And Ava went.

Mira had been nervous before they began.  Falling, even when she wasn't in any real danger, was scary.  It pulled at something in her gut, something uncontrollable and instinctive that screamed she was about to die.

Flying was different.  The sense of motion was always up and forward in a way that felt disorienting at first, and then exhilarating.  She screamed and howled in delight as Ava sped her up and up and over, and even when they began to dive it felt different because it was still controlled, the speed was still directed forward, and Mira loved it.

Ava leveled out as they approached the ground and did a little spin so that Mira felt her back brush the tall grass before she was on top again.  They stayed low to the ground, and Mira held out her hand to feel the tips of the grass brush and scratch at her palm and they flew forward, always forward, and Ava swung them to the very edge of the field where the land began to dip back down the mountain, then back again.  As they went back towards the house, Ava slowed so that the dogs could keep pace, barking and running beside them. 

Ava turned her head slightly.  “Do you feel like you're up to phasing your whole body on command?”

“Yes!”

“Ok, on three.  One, two, three!”

Mira phased, and felt Ava phase with her, and then dip into the grass and further until they were flying through the ground, dark but somehow not lightless, until they popped back out again, laughing. 

****

“So do I get to hear how you two met, since Beatrice apparently didn't lead with ‘Hi, I'm your mom?’”  Ava smiled with her eyebrows raised as she asked.  At Mira's insistence, she and Beatrice were not sitting in each other's laps for this particular meal, though Mira suspected they were taking advantage of sitting across from each other to play footsie.  Mira was at the head of the table, though, so it was a worthy sacrifice. 

Beatrice dropped her fork and coughed as she choked on air.  “No, hmm, I don't think we need to–”

“She shot me in the neck with a tranquilizer.”  Mira felt a grim satisfaction at sharing that particular fact, though Beatrice's face went crimson, all the way back through her undercut. with a speed that surprised Mira, and she dropped her gaze to the table.

Ava cocked her head and looked at Beatrice with what Mira would have sworn was disappointment.  “Bea.”

“I … she was in danger, and I didn't have time to explain, and I could move faster than her that way–”

“Bea.”

Beatrice was breathing more heavily.  “There were exigent circumstances, I needed to–”

“She literally did the same thing to me the first time we met,” Ava said quietly to Mira, though not so quietly as not to be heard by Beatrice.

“You were panicking in the middle of trespassing on Jillian's property and I calculated, correctly, that you were a flight risk!  So.”  Beatrice's cheeks were still flushed in a strange contrast to the near-constant blue glow of her tattoos, but the rest of her face and neck had returned to a light tan.  Mira couldn't tell whether Beatrice was angry or embarrassed anymore. 

The corners of Ava's mouth twitched up slyly.  “You never did apologize for that.”

Beatrice glared.  “That's because I'm not sorry.”

Ava dipped some bread in a red sauce that she had made with some vegetables from her garden out back, plus some others she'd gotten from a “shipment” about which Mira was not permitted any other details, and which she suspected in reality had come most immediately from the ice chest in the basement.  Ava was still smirking.  “Mmmm. And have you apologized to Mira?”

Mira watched Beatrice's jaw flex with words Beatrice wanted to say and didn't.  Instead she huffed.  “My parents never apologized to me for anything in their lives.  Which I suppose is as good a reason as any to make a habit of it.”  She turned to Mira.  “I'm sorry for tranquilizing you.”

Mira nodded.  “I accept your apology.”

Ava looked back and forth between the two of them.  “That's it!?  That's all it takes?!?  It's been years, Bea!”

“And you deserved it, for making time with that other one.”

“I didn't even know you yet!”

“Mira, did you know your mother once told Mary that she was in love with someone else?  Kissed him, even?”

“You kissed another girl while I was paralyzed!”

“And was punished for it by my monstrous parents.”  Beatrice calmly took a bite of her food, while Mira hid a smile.  “You, on the other hand, got away with it.”

“Do you really want to go down this road, honey Bea?”  Ava glared across the table, while Mira tried to figure out whether Ava was actually angry now. 

Beatrice chewed silently for a moment.  “Truce?”  

Ava threw a balled-up piece of bread at Beatrice, who caught it deftly in her mouth, though in the time she had taken to do so Ava had phased through the table and sat herself in Beatrice's lap, where she proceeded to kiss Beatrice's face aggressively.

“No.” ::smack::  “Truce.”  ::smack::  “I.”  ::smack::  “Win.”  ::smack::  ::smack::  “Say it.”

Mira wanted to throw up.  “You promised you wouldn't sit in her lap anymore!”

Beatrice ignored Mira's complaint, or pretended to.  She just curled up her face like she wasn't enjoying the disgusting display.  “I won't.  I won't say it.”

“Mira's right, actually, I said I wouldn't sit in your lap during meals, so…”  Ava leaned forward and shifted her weight so that the chair fell backwards, though she managed to catch the chair and Beatrice in it just before they hit the floor.  She then gently set them down and proceeded to lay on top of Beatrice.  “There.  Not in your lap anymore.”  And the kissing resumed.

Mira groaned.

“Bea, I don't think Mira thinks this is better.”

“That's because it's not better!”

“OK, OK, I'll get up, I'll–HEY!”

“I didn't ask you to get up.”  Beatrice had wrapped her arms around Ava's back, holding her in place.

While Mira rolled her eyes and let her tongue hang out in disgust, Ava giggled.  “OK, but I think this is probably going to be really uncomfortable for you in about thirty seconds.”

“That sounds like a problem for us thirty seconds from now.”

Lara, the tabby, walked over to investigate, while Inês and Matteo began to eye the abandoned place settings.

“The dogs are about to eat your dinner.”  Mira wasn't sure whether she meant it as a warning or to announce a punishment.

****

“What does this have to do with anything?”

Mira had been sitting still and thinking about her breathing for what felt like the entire morning and she was bored.

“So this is about learning to calm your body and your emotions on purpose.  Calming the Halo feels the same.  Practicing the one helped me get better at the other.”

Mira did not feel like practicing the one was helping her get better at the other.  It just felt frustrating.  What was she even supposed to do?  Ava and Beatrice (summer was approaching, but she still didn't feel comfortable calling them her moms) kept talking about “focus on one sound at a time” and “try to block out the rest of the world” but Mira had no idea how she was supposed to do that.  

She decided to block out Ava and Beatrice instead.  This meditation stuff wasn't working for her.  Maybe she could try the other way again?  Nadia once showed her a trick where she folded her tongue back so that the tip lay flat along the center.  Mira had never been able to get the hang of it, but Nadia had said it was just about letting your tongue relax.  Maybe this was the same, trying to relax something that wasn't supposed to relax.

She reached out, or really in, in a way that felt familiar now, to that warmth in her chest.  She felt it start to warm up and wondered how to stop that, or make it go in the opposite direction.  She tried pulling back, which stopped the warmth from increasing, but it was still there, like it was always there, even if only a little bit.  She tried thinking cold thoughts, about snow and winter and icicles.  She tried shushing the Halo in her head, silently encouraging it to be still and calm.  None of it worked. 

“Mira?  Are you even listening?”  Ava sounded annoyed.

“No.”

Mira thought she heard Beatrice snort a laugh and the two of them start arguing, but she was back to ignoring them.

She reached back out again to the Halo.  As she did, she felt the Halo reach back.  It reminded her of an old toy set someone had brought with them to the Cradle, a relic of the old world, just blocks with magnets in them.  Mira had liked to push together the ones that had the same polarity, liked the feel of them pushing back.  She stopped short of grasping the Halo, held back from the pull she felt.  It wasn't easy, the pull felt a lot stronger than the toys, but it was oddly satisfying, feeling the tension from–

“She's got it!”

Beatrice's shout caused Mira's concentration to slip.  

“She lost it.”

Mira scoffed.  “You made me lose it.”

Ava shushed them.  “What's important is that you did it, which is amazing!  Do you think you could do it again?”

Mira tried again, glancing at Beatrice every few seconds for confirmation as to whether she was actually doing anything.  Eventually she found the right “distance” at which to hold the Halo, and received an approving nod.

“That's really hard.  You…do you walk around, I mean not walk, but you do this all the time?”

Ava pressed her lips together and nodded.  “Yeah.”

****

Nights were quiet, mostly.  Relatively.  Ava and Beatrice had something called a record player that played music that someone had etched on a black disk like a drawing, and the device followed the etching with a needle and played the sound back.  Mira had never heard a lot of the instruments before, and never mixed together like that.

It made Mira uncomfortable watching them dance, though not the same way as when they were all over each other for no reason.  It made her think about a world that didn't exist, where they were all safe and happy, and she was a toddler and one or both of them picked her up and danced with her in a place like this.  Where they hugged and touched and she rushed between them and demanded hugs for herself.  Where she could have grown up with that kind of easy affection and warmth.

She struggled with it, daily.  She’d long since lost the ability to sustain the anger always, but it never went all the way away.  Neither of her mothers had ventured another apology, and she hated them for that too, for denying her the chance to tell them off again.  And maybe if they kept saying it she would believe them.  Eventually.

Instead she watched them laugh and hug and touch and kiss, and display all the things she wished for when she was little and never got, not the way she wanted.  The Holy Mother had been kind, to be sure, affectionate to a degree, but she had always held back.  In retrospect, Mira thought it made sense.  The Holy Mother knew these two, maybe wouldn’t have wanted to take their place.  

Mira fantasized sometimes about what it would look like if she forgave them, what it would feel like.  What would it feel like to call Ava Silva “mama,” to call Beatrice “mom” out of affection, instead of as a tactic to get what she wanted?  Would the pain go away all at once?  Would it stay exactly the same, and only trickle away slowly over time?  Or something in the middle, a lesser pain balanced by something like happiness?  Would one or both of them let her sit in their laps and read to her, or would they say she was too big for that?  Would they let her climb into their bed at night and snuggle between them when it rained and the lightning was loud, or just because?  Would Mira want these things, if they were allowed to her?

Curly, the gray cat, interrupted her thoughts by nuzzling her hand, then attacking it with tooth and claw when she dared to pet him in response.  

****

“Mira, that’s amazing.”

Mira felt proud of herself, and not just because of Beatrice’s compliment.  She had kept the Halo’s power levels invisible for a good ten minutes straight and felt no signs of stopping.  It was the second day in a row she had been able to do this; yesterday she made it to a whole hour before her control broke.

“Soooo…”  Ava ventured.  “Do we think she can manage by herself for a while, or…”

Beatrice looked back at Ava intensely, and Mira couldn’t help but feel like they were having an entirely different conversation, though she couldn’t imagine about what.  After a little while exchanging small shifts in expression that Mira couldn’t make out, Ava parted her lips and rubbed her bottom lip idly, and whatever that meant apparently decided the issue for Beatrice.  “Yes, yes, I think she should, um…yes.”

Mira wasn't about to complain.  They had insisted on at least one of them watching over her at all times, so that she hadn't had a moment to herself, not really, since they arrived.  Not since the tent and the Shining Ones, in fact.  Playing in the field with the animals was the closest she got, but even then she was under the watchful eye of one or both of her mothers.

She took the dogs out and let them run; the cats were already off hunting somewhere in the mid-afternoon sun.  Mira walked to the edge of where the field ended and the mountain turned steep again.  With no training to keep track of or animals to worry about, she explored until she found the road.  It was a piteous, washed out thing, and it looked like a minor rockslide had blocked it a little way down the slope.  She was trying to figure out how far she could make it down the mountain when she heard the screaming.

She probably should have run away, she knew that, but what was all this training for, why even have a Halo, if not to help?  To protect?  She stopped holding the Halo at bay and the ground blurred beneath her.  She ran right through the back wall of the house and managed to phase through the whole kitchen and the far exterior wall before stumbling to a halt and making her way, not quite as quickly, back inside.  The screaming had stopped, and she didn't want to think about what that meant as she saw the first floor empty and made her way up the stairs.  She phased right through the door to her mothers’ room.

This was a mistake.

“Oh my GOD, I'm going to throw up.”  That was all she managed to get out before she turned around, except the sight of her parents naked had apparently disrupted her emotional state enough that she bounced off the door instead of walking through it.  She used the doorknob on her second attempt.  At least they hadn't been actually doing anything at the time, just Ava lying on the bed and Beatrice standing nearby and Mira really was going to throw up.

Ava at least had the decency to look embarrassed the rest of the day.  Beatrice actually looked smug, which just made Mira want to throw up more.

****

The summer wore on.  Mira’s mothers taught her old games, silly games, with names like “Clue” and “Go Fish.”  She learned to use the Halo’s power to strengthen herself and managed to lift a whole fallen tree in the pass up the mountain, at least for a few seconds.  More than once her mothers put on some old music and danced together in the living room, and sometimes they weren’t even disgusting about it.

And, eventually, one night after dinner in July, Mira thought she was ready to talk more.

“I still hate it.”

Ava and Beatrice looked at each other, then back at Mira.

“That you left me.  I don’t…it’s easy not to think about it sometimes, but then I’ll be trying to go to sleep or something, and I just…I get really angry.  Or sad.  Both.  And I don’t understand.  You both act like you never…but you did.  So can you explain it to me again?  I’ll try not to yell this time.”

Mira was only crying a little bit, and wiped her cheeks.

Ava began.  “I guess…I never got to the part where I got to live for what I wanted.  When I first got the Halo, all I could think about was finally getting to do all the things I always dreamed of when I was hurt, and stuck in that bed.  And then I realized that not everything was about me, and all I could think about was how to protect the people I cared about.  No matter what I had to give up to do it.  And there was always more to give, until there was nothing left of me.  And then Reya had me, and…when I came back from that, I hid again.  I always thought the thing that scared me most in the world was being alone, but the scariest thing was thinking I deserved to be alone.  That I didn’t deserve love, or anything.  And maybe I got in the habit of that.  Always thinking that I had to give something up.”  She wiped her eyes and looked at Mira.  “I still don’t know what I could have done differently.  But I wish I hadn’t given up.  I wish I had tried harder to figure out another way.  Because I’m so, so sorry, Mira.”

Mira rubbed the wet from her cheeks.  “OK.  OK.”  She looked at Beatrice.  “And what about you?”

Beatrice rubbed at her fingers and didn’t look up.  “I suppose I knew I would fail you.  I’ve always failed the people I love.  I knew I would be failing you whichever choice we made.  But at least this way, I thought you would be safe.”

Mira didn’t much care for that explanation, but she thought about Beatrice after Uriel, refusing to let herself sleep, and thought she understood it some.  “I would like a hug now.  I think.”  Mira wiped her tears as Ava walked over to her.

When the world went away this time, Mira wasn't sure whose eyes she was seeing from, but she was certain it wasn't Ava.  Mostly because she was looking at Ava.  And the ceiling.  

“We can't.  We can't leave her.”  Ava was crying.

Beatrice walked into view.  She and Ava were standing side by side, looking over her.  Their positioning was helpful, as Mira couldn't seem to turn her head very well.  “The waters are receding.  The storms have ceased and they are already marching to clean up survivors.  We knew this day was coming.  If we don't go, now, so many more people will die.  We need to rally resistance, help people get to safety.  And we can't do that with–”  Beatrice glanced at Mira and her face crumpled.  She gritted her teeth, but it didn't stop the tears, or the soft keening at the back of her throat.

“I know,” Ava whispered as she wrapped her arms around Beatrice and held her close.  “I just…I can't do this to her.  I told myself I would never do what he did to me, and now I'm no different than–”  Ava broke off into her own sobs, and for a while her mothers just held each other and shook.

Eventually they stilled, and Ava leaned over and reached down into the crib.  She lifted Mira out, then held close as Beatrice hugged both of them.  She had never felt so safe in her life. 

“Mira, I'm so sorry,” Ava whispered to her.  “We're so sorry, filha, but mom and mama have to go now.  We love you so, so much, and we're going to try to make a safe world for you to grow up.  But until then, until we can see you again, we're leaving you with you Aunt Mary, who is so strong, and so cool, and she is going to take the best care of you, we both know it. We'll be watching over you, OK?  Always.”  Mira could feel her mothers’ heartbeats in sync, and it made her feel calm, even though they were upset. 

Beatrice leaned down and kissed Mira gently on the head.  “I love you, Mira.  I'm sorry I won't get to love you the way you deserve.  But your mama and I will always love you.”

They held her for a while longer, kissing her and telling her how loved she was, until there was a knock on the door.  Then they each kissed her one last time, and Ava set her back down in the crib, and her mothers left.

Mira expected something to happen then, perhaps for the vision to end, but nothing did.  She was just alone in her crib in a dark room.

Then the door opened and one of the women from the last vision, Camila, entered, and closed the door behind herself swiftly, and quietly.  She walked to the crib, and peered down at Mira with a smile.  Her eyes were dark brown, her voice smooth and calming.  She was wearing what, as far as Mira could see, was a cream-colored dress, with thick straps at the shoulders, and something dark around her neck, and along her collarbones, something…

“Look at you.  What a special little girl you are!”  The woman reached out a pinky, and Mira grabbed it thoughtlessly, knowing only that it felt good to grab.  “And such a strong grip already.”  The woman’s right eye ignited, and her voice doubled, though now Mira heard that the second voice was deeper than the first.  “We can only imagine what surprises you might have in store someday, little one.”

The woman looked to the door, then back.  “We do wish your parents were more reasonable, though we suppose it’s to be expected.  So much pain and sacrifice, and for what.  We'd have made a place for you, with us, safe from Reya, where they could have come and seen you whenever they wanted.”

The woman leaned over and Mira noticed she was wearing something like a necklace, or perhaps a harness, around her neck, and Mira wanted nothing more than to grab as the woman lifted Mira up.  “No, no, little one,” she cooed in her strange doubled voice.  “Why don't you try this instead?”  And she turned her head so that her dark curls were close enough to reach, and Mira felt that would do just as well, maybe better, for grabbing. 

Even so, she couldn't help but stare at the thing around the woman's neck.  It was dark, brown or black, in layered cords, except for pale little spikes sticking out of it that pierced the woman's skin on and around her neck.  It looked like it must hurt, but there was no blood, and the woman didn't seem to be in pain. 

The woman cocked her head as she bounced Mira in her arms.  “In fact…oh, wouldn't that be something.  If you hear this, someday, know that if you find yourself in need of a safe haven, come find us.  There will always be a place for you in the Protectorate, Mira.”  She smiled.   “And it will make your mothers so very, very angry.”

She winked her burning eye…

And Mira blinked at her mothers, sitting in front of her on the living room floor.

Ava looked at her closely.  “Mira?  What did you see?”

She almost asked about the woman, “who is Camila” was on the tip of her tongue, but something about the woman's last words made her pause.  Would they be angry?  They certainly didn't have any right to be, not as far as Mira could see.

“I saw…I was in my crib.  When you left.”

“Oh.”

Next to Ava, Beatrice took in a sharp breath.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

Mira frowned.  “I need some time, to think about it more.  I think.”

Her mothers nodded.  “OK.”

****

Mira hadn’t decided she liked meditation.  She wouldn’t go that far.  But it did give her time to think.  To work through things.  And so it was while she was sitting outside the house, meditating with Beatrice, that she finally decided to ask something that had been on her mind.

“Do you think a person has to say they’re sorry before they can be forgiven for something?”  Mira rubbed two stones together as she waited for an answer.

Beatrice laughed bitterly, briefly.  “What a question.  Of course.”

“Why?”

Beatrice shook her head.  “Because God said so.  The old God.  The God I was taught to worship as a child, then the God I chose as my little rebellion against my parents.  The same God, really, and the teaching was the same: you must repent and ask forgiveness to be forgiven.  Why should it be any different with people?”

Mira rubbed the stones together a little longer.  The feeling was soothing.  Then she threw one of them away, across the field.  “Your God sucks.”

Beatrice threw her head back and laughed.  “You're much wiser than I was.”

They sat in silence for a while longer as the sun drifted lower behind the mountains.  “I don't know how to feel about a lot of this.  And I'll probably always be kind of sad about it, or mad, or something.  But…I forgive you for not telling me.  Mom.”

Her mother's face crumpled as she let out great, choking sobs.  Mira slid closer and held one of her mothers as she wept, until her mom gathered herself and wrapped Mira up in a hug and pulled Mira into her lap and kissed Mira's head and whispered “Thank you” again and again.  And Mira sat in the warm blue glow of her mom's tattoos as the sun dipped below the mountains, and felt that the hurt wasn’t so much that day.

****

Mira was getting better.  Neither Ava nor Beatrice would actually try to hit her, not really, but they had settled on just trying to touch her as they taught her to anticipate attacks.  The sun was on the far side of the mountains, though the sky was only just starting to properly darken.  Beatrice was in the house, preparing dinner.  And Mira had just phased through ten touches in a row.  

Mira laughed as she danced away from the last tap.  “YES!  Missed again!”

Ava smiled widely.  “OK, OK, you’re super fast, I get it.  So how long do you think it’ll take you to get to the western pass and back?”

Mira smirked as her answer, then took off.  She had gotten much, much better over the course of the summer, hadn’t tripped since July in fact, and she was sure she could be back in less than half a minute.  She was most of the way to the pass, through which she and Beatrice had first arrived months before, when the air tore in front of her.

She tried to phase through the thing that stepped through out of instinct.  It hurt when she collided with the thing and bounced off it, like something was broken in her head, and maybe some other parts of her, though she felt the Halo healing her.  Mira scuttled away as fast as she could and looked up at it, skin and horns and claws made of burning metal, and flame beneath, towering taller than any person she’s ever met or heard of.  She was fast, even on hands and feet, until she heard the world tear again behind her, and looked up and saw a second tarask staring down at her.  She tried to scream, but it came out as a whimper.

“Mama…”

The tarask growled as it reached down towards her…and then twin flashes of blue flashed low across Mira's vision, and the tarask’s claw fell to the ground.  It tried to turn to follow its attacker, but its right leg had been severed at the ankle.  As it stumbled, Mira saw two blue swords, sticking out of the ground at low angles, turning in a rapid arc and accelerating back towards the tarask.  The other one was only starting to lumber towards them by the time Ava burst from the ground in front of Mira, spinning with a blade in each hand as she severed the nearer tarask's head.

“Mira, get back to Beatrice.  Don't stop until you're with her.”

Ava didn't turn around as the other tarask charged them, didn't move even, until it was almost upon them, and then she was a blur limned in glowing azure and the tarask rippled and roared and was swallowed by the air.  Mira ran.

She saw, even as she turned, other holes being torn in the world, and other tarasks pulling themselves through, and so she ran as fast as the Halo could make her, and still narrowly ducked a claw that emerged from nothing and nowhere to reach for her.  Beatrice burst from the house and was almost as fast as Mira, her chain and blade spinning a glinting wheel that turned blue as Mira got closer, then lashed out above Mira’s head and plucked a roar from behind her.

“Stay next to me, and stay low.”  Beatrice spoke as she swung the chain in a wide arc around her, cutting into another tarask almost as soon as it rent its way through the air and into their world. 

Mira had no time or space or weapon to help with, but watched as Beatrice banished one after another after another, until two came through at once and one caught the chain just so, right below the blade, such that it was not cut.  Beatrice let go as it pulled and hurled the chain across the field.  Beatrice barely had time to extend her staff before Ava emerged from the ground as a whirlwind of blue light, banishing both tarasks at once.

Ava landed and looked around; the field was empty for the moment.  She shook her head.   “This isn’t possible.  The amount of energy to send this many through…it’s too much, she would never…”

Around the edges of the field, the world burned and a dozen, two dozen, more, pulled themselves through.  Ava and Beatrice looked at each other, then at Mira.

Ava sheathed her swords and gently cupped Mira’s cheeks.  Her eyes glistened.  “Mira, baby, we have to send you to stay with a friend.  She’ll keep you safe.  Whatever you do, do not let her come after us.  We’ll be OK, alright?  No matter what, we’ll be OK, and we’ll come find you.”

“Ava…”  Beatrice’s tone was tense; beyond her, the tarasks were closing in as they lumbered through the tall grass.

“We love you Mira.  We love you so much.”  Ava kissed her on the forehead as a tear fell, then turned.  The Halo in Ava’s back glowed brightly as she levitated a foot off the ground, then spun around the axis of the Halo perpendicular to the ground, so that it looked almost like the Halo wasn’t moving at all.  Red tendrils spread from the Halo and the air bent and twisted, and Mira felt a hand on her back and Beatrice’s whisper in her ear.  “We love you.  We will see you soon.”  And then Mira was being lifted in the air and hurled towards Ava’s back, and she held up her hands…

…and she was somewhere else.  The ground she fell to was black stone that shined, reflective, unlike any she had seen before.  She looked up and saw that she was in a large room, longer across than Ava’s whole home, and filled with statues and paintings, and couches in red and gold fabric, and a dark wooden table, almost black…there were glass doors in the wall across from her, and outside all she could see was gray fog.

The hand that grabbed her by the back of the neck did so roughly, and dug something horribly sharp into her skin as it lifted her into the air and turned her.  As it did, she recognized the scaled face from her vision.

Lilith growled and slapped the hand that wasn’t holding Mira to the back of her neck.  “You have to the count of three to tell me who you are and what you are doing here before I start removing pieces that you will miss.  One.  Two...”

Chapter Text

I don’t want to be worshiped.  The two of you, or three of you, however you want to count it, you can keep that.  Respect, maybe even a little fear.  That’s enough for me.  Adriel tried to play the same game as Reya, and look where that got him.  What success he almost had didn’t come from worship.  It didn’t come from her kind of power.  It came from something else.  And maybe you can’t reach the hearts he reached, maybe you can’t build that kind of power.  But I can.  And I will.

Excerpt from the Demon Queen’s Pronouncement of Amnesty

“...three–”

Mira tried to speak and failed, because of the hand squeezing her throat.  She tried again from the floor after phasing through the woman’s hand.  “Mira!  My name is Mira, I’m–”

“Shi–oooooot.  Shoot.”  The woman, Lilith, was staring at her, though Mira found she couldn’t quite read Lilith’s expression.  Her face was not quite covered in scales; they almost had the appearance of having been painted on in diagonal brushstrokes, except for the clusters under her eyes, but the effect was distracting.  “You’re…no.  You say it.”  Her accent was like Beatrice’s, though it had a sharper edge to it.

Mira swallowed hard.  The pain was gone, both from the choking and the puncture wound from what she presumed was a nail digging into her neck, but the memory was still fresh.  “My parents are Ava and Beatrice.  They said I would be safe with you.”  Mira noted to herself as she said it that she certainly didn’t feel safe.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed.  “Why wasn’t it safe where they are?”

“Tarasks.”  Lilith’s form began to flicker black and red, before Mira added “They said you shouldn’t go, they would handle it!”

The streaks of color disappeared from around Lilith.  “They said that, did they.”  She looked at her hand, then back down at Mira.  “You have a Halo.  Both of you had Halos and the tarasks came.”

Mira nodded.  Lilith shook her head and began to chuckle.  “Of course.  Of course you do.”  She turned and walked away, across the room, and Mira was able to take in her appearance in full for the first time.  Lilith's shirt and pants were loose, flowing, grey so dark they were almost black, with silver cuffs at the wrists and ankles and silver buttons on the front of her shirt.  Her feet were bare, and covered in scales, though their shape was recognizably human.  Her hair was loose around her shoulders with a white steak offset to one side.  Her face was mostly scaled, as was her left hand, with bits of human skin speckled throughout.  Her right hand…was not recognizably human.  The fingers were too long, with claws at the end that reminded Mira too much of the tarasks, and the skin was wiry and metallic.  

“I'm making myself a drink.  You like orange juice, yes?” Lilith asked as she pierced an orange with her claw, then squeezed it into a glass, then repeated the process until she had one glass two thirds full and another nearly as full.  She then grabbed a large bottle of what looked like water and added it to the less-full glass until both were even.

“How do you know I like orange juice?”

Lilith turned and stared blankly.  “Did you see any orange trees in the Alps?”

“No.”

“You’re welcome.”  She brought the glasses over, hesitated for a moment before handing one to Mira, then sat down on an ornate couch and set down her drink on a glass table in front of her.  

She gestured for Mira to sit in one of two seats across from her.  Mira sank into the chair, which wrapped itself around her gently but firmly as she wriggled into a recline with her legs under her.  Mira decided immediately it was her favorite chair, ever.

This made sense to Mira.  The woman sitting across from her was a legend, it made sense that the “Queen of Hell,” who could stride across the world in a single step, would have the best of everything.  The furniture and art that filled the enormous, roughly circular room sparked Mira’s imagination so that she almost looked away to try to see if there was anything she recognized from the books back at the Cradle…but she had difficulty looking away from Lilith.

Mira had never met a legend before, not one that counted.  If forced, Mira would grudgingly admit that Ava was at least as notable and infamous a figure as Lilith, but Mira had always thought of the Betrayer as a monster, the woman who murdered Mira’s parents.  Finding her and getting to know her had changed Mira's opinion of her mother, but not in the direction of awe.  

Lilith opened a black box on the table, maybe two hands wide, and took out a small square of paper a few centimeters on a side and a small pouch.  She began to roll what looked like a cigarette, though Mira thought the crumbled clumps of leaves smelled strongly of pine.

Mira opened her mouth to say something, though she hadn’t yet figured out what, but found that no sound came out.  Lilith glanced up at her and allowed the corner of her mouth to quirk upwards (Mira would have refused to believe that anything that Lilith did was unintentional), before returning to the cigarette, which she sealed by touching the tip of her tongue all along the free edge of the paper.  Mira found herself wondering why the doors to the outside were shut, as she realized that the room was unnecessarily warm, and blamed the lack of air flow.  Mira took a sip of the orange juice to cool herself, and perhaps ease her throat.  There was something oddly sharp about the drink, though Mira assumed it had something to do with the freshness of the oranges, or perhaps that they were an unusually acidic or sour variety she had never tasted before.

Mira tried again to speak.  “What’s that for?”  She immediately wished to take back her words and to think of something more clever to say, and perhaps to manifest a unique power through the Halo that would accomplish this.

Lilith held the cigarette in her mouth, and bracketed her left thumb and forefinger around the tip.  Through no mechanism Mira could see, the end of the cigarette began to glow.  Lilith inhaled deeply and paused for a moment, before tilting her head back and expelling a cloud towards the ceiling.  “This is to calm me down, so that I don’t find your mothers and strangle them to death.”

Mira shifted in her seat and took another sip of her juice.  “Why, um…why would you…?”

Lilith huffed out something like a laugh, then tilted her head back to look at Mira, which made her feel like she was falling again from a great height.  “Because I am extremely angry with them.  For many reasons.  None of which are productive right now.”  Lilith brought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled again, this time curving her mouth so that little halos of smoke emerged when she puffed out, and Mira thought it was one of the coolest things she had ever seen.  “So I’m going to take the edge off and try to figure out what I’m going to do, now that this situation has blown up in all our faces.”

Several questions ran through Mira’s head, though priority was chosen by a flash from outside on of the glass doors to the outside, accompanied by an enormous crash, like thunder but louder.  “Where…where are we?”

Lilith stretched her arms to either side, the smoke from her cigarette tracing the arc of her left hand.  “This is the Tower of Pandemonium, High Seat of the Free Cities.”  Sister Yasmine’s histories called the Free Cities “Hell on Earth,” but Mira thought it was not the moment to point that out.  Mira also wasn’t sure how much more detail she could, or should, ask for from one of the most dangerous beings to ever exist about the precise location of her home.  Mira recalled vaguely that the Tower was constructed in, or perhaps on top of, an old place of worship somewhere to the east, but not much more than that.  She wished Nadia were there.

“Are they going to be alright?”  Mira wasn't sure how much of her emotions were the result of the excitement, or awe, or fear of where she was and with whom, and how much was the result of the danger she had just escaped.  And the two who had not escaped.

Lilith inhaled more smoke, and narrowed her eyes.  “I don’t know.  How many tarasks?”

Mira swallowed hard.  “A lot.”

“Then it depends upon whether Reya gives up, or runs out of power to send more, before your mothers fall.  A battle of attrition.  Like everything else.”

Lilith looked like she was going to say something else, then shook her head.  “I can't believe they let you have it.”

Mira furrowed her brow.  “What do you mean?”

Lilith cocked her head and twisted her mouth for a moment.  “Ava has thought for a very, very long time that there should be no such thing as a Halobearer.  That it's a curse, one that she is responsible for ending.  And here you are.  Like mother, like daughter.  She must have hated it.  Seeing you, of all people, with a Halo.”

The words felt oily and rancid in Mira’s gut.

“So how did it happen?”

“An Angel killed me.”

The words hung in the air with Lilith's smoke.  

“Say more about that.”

The glass rattled against the table when Mira set it down, which was how Mira realized her hand was shaking.

“It, um, it found me when I was trying to escape from some of the Shining Ones…my…Beatrice helped me escape, and she was holding them off, or killing them, and she told me to run, and it was, um…it just appeared in front of me.  And it had a Halo.  It…it hurt me.  I don't know why, I wouldn't answer its questions but it was like it could see the answers in my head anyway.  It had these, tentacles, or wings, and it hurt, and it was like it was leaking fire onto the ground and, um…”

She couldn't stop shaking all of a sudden and she hated it.  She could still feel her insides spilling out, and her blood, and her life, and she hated it.  The Halo's glow started in her chest, though Lilith didn't move, or even look particularly concerned.

“This was Uriel, then?”

Mira nodded.  She was suddenly unsure whether she should be talking about all of this to someone she only just met, someone whom her mothers had never told her about before…but they trusted Lilith with her life.  She hoped that trust extended to other things.

“My, um, Beatrice found me then.  Found us.  And she ripped the Halo out.  And they were fighting and it was…he was killing her.  I thought he was going to kill her.  And the Halo was so close, and I thought I could save her.”

Mira didn't look up until she heard Lilith laughing.  It didn't sound cruel, but Mira wasn't sure what else it could be.  

“Why are you laughing?”

Lilith's head was in her right hand; there was something unnerving about the fact that Lilith could practically wrap her fingers on that hand all the way around her head.

“Uriel finally finding Beatrice after all this time and then dying by her hand is actually quite funny by itself, but also...it's a long story, but I suppose we have time.  Actually, have you read the Commentaries?”

“Some.  I didn't finish, actually.  I didn't like, um…”

“Carlo was an ass and a hack writer and it felt gross reading about how brave he was for talking to me every other paragraph?”

Mira nodded, eyes wide.

“Well then.  When I was young, I was raised to protect others.  I was taught that it was all I was good for.  Not just protecting others, but dying to protect them.  That it was an honor, and my birthright, and I needed the Halo to do it properly.  And I believed that so much that I almost killed one of your mothers to get the Halo from her, then got between her and a tarask when it looked like it was about to kill her.  And now, all these years later, here we are and her daughter is just the same, throwing herself on a Halo so she can protect the people around her.  I'm sure she gave Beatrice an earful.”

Mira frowned.  “There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect people.”

“No.  There's not.  But you're a child–”

“Teenager,” Mira muttered.

“–and it's not your job.  I'm sure you're enjoying it, yes?  Makes you feel powerful.  And you are.  You’re also incredibly vulnerable, and you’re now a soldier in a war you don’t understand.  Because there’s a target on you now, and you…”

She frowned.

“Go back.”

“To what?”

“To Uriel.  You said he hurt you.  And that it looked like…fire was coming out of him?  And falling to the ground?”

Mira nodded.

“Was that before or after you got the Halo?”

There were more questions like that, and for a time Mira felt like she was being interrogated again, though Lilith cut a much more imposing figure than Samuel had.  She asked about Mira’s combat training, both at the Cradle and with Beatrice, and then with Beatrice and Ava.  She asked about the wolves at the river, and the escape from the Shining Ones, and her kidnapping.  The level of detail she insisted upon was, at best, unnerving, as she asked Mira to recount one fight after another nearly blow for blow.  The whole time, Mira calmed herself with sips from the orange juice Lilith had given her.  She still wasn’t sure what it was about the oddly sharp juice that calmed her, but she could feel it on her skin, a warmth and a loosening.

“So?  How’d you take it?”

“What?”

“Finding out who your parents are.”  Lilith let out a small stream of smoke from her mouth, then lifted a taloned finger and moved it, and the smoke danced and swirled back and forth in time with her finger and Mira thought she was wrong before, that was one of the coolest things she had ever seen.

“I yelled at them a lot.”

Lilith shrugged.  “Better than me.  I killed my mother.”

“Because she was a…”  Mira caught herself before she finished the sentence, then calculated the odds that the Queen of Hell would tattle on her to Mary for cursing, even if it was only to repeat a word she remembered Lilith saying in the Commentaries.  “...a bitch?”

The corners of Lilith’s mouth twitched.  “Just so.  That was a complicated time in my life.”  Her mouth twitched again.  “It’s funny, actually.  My parents were the exact opposite of yours in some ways.  They raised me my whole life to bear the Halo.  To die, really.  And for all that…”

Lilith trailed off and stared at the ceiling for a time while Mira continued to drink her juice.  Then Lilith put the cigarette to her lips again and breathed in, and Mira couldn’t wait longer without asking.

“Isn’t that bad for you?  The stories all say you used to be a nun.”

Lilith smirked.  “I suppose Mary and I traded habits.”  Lilith winced as soon as the words were out.

“Oh.  Do you…was it like a requirement that you had to tell bad jokes, or…”

“No, no.  I don’t…ugh.”  Lilith shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.  “I suppose I’ve just spent too much time around your mothers over the years.  Neither one of them has a sense of humor worth a damn.”

Mira gnawed on her bottom lip.  “So if you know them so well…why aren’t you going to help them?”

“You mean the thing that they told you to tell me not to do?”

“Yeah.”

Lilith snorted.  “I’d love to, but you–”

“I can dim the Halo.  Lower its output to basically nothing, for an hour at least.  They won’t find me here.”

Lilith sighed.  “That’s impressive.  But if I go, it risks other things.  Things your mothers have already perhaps put at risk.”

“Things more important than their lives?”

Lilith stared at Mira in a way that made her feel like she was falling.  “Yes.  But I would go anyway, if it came to it.  If they needed my help.  But they told you to tell me not to follow.  Trust your team.”

A bright flash illuminated the glass doors at the edge of the room.  Mira hadn't counted “two” before she heard thunder crash outside, and the rain started falling, or intensified to the point Mira could hear it now.

“Has it sunk in yet?”  Lilith inhaled deeply and blew out rings of smoke, illuminated as if from a flame within her throat.

Mira shifted uncomfortably as she took another sip.  Her face felt warm, and a little…fuzzy?  Almost like someone was pricking her all over with a thousand needles at once, but the needles were soft somehow.  “Has what sunk in?”

Lilith leaned her head over the back of the couch and stretched her arms towards either end, then pushed herself off the couch slightly as sparks flew from behind her before resolving into enormous, scaled wings tipped with razor-sharp talons.  She lowered herself back to the couch and let her wings drag lazily against the floor.  Mira wondered idly if there were holes in the back of Lilith’s pajamas, or if she just ripped them every time the wings came out.  “Responsibility.  Being a Halobearer.  I rather suspect your mothers haven’t given much thought to what that feels like, at least at your age.”  Lilith frowned.  “Actually, how old are you now?”

“I’m thirteen.”  Mira sat up straighter on the chair, though she still had her legs under her.  It felt like the room wobbled a bit.  “And I’m glad I have the Halo.  It saved my life, and I can use it to help people.  To…to protect them.”  Her mouth felt slow, struggling to catch up with the words she wanted to speak. 

“Well aren’t you an upright little ball of idealism.  You’re more like Beatrice than you come off at first.”  Lilith took another inhale from her cigarette, and let the smoke curl around her as she spoke.  “Doesn’t feel like a burden, then?  Something forced upon you?  I only ask because it sounds like you were literally required to take it on pain of death.”

Mira frowned.  “I suppose.  But it’s not…I’m alive.  So that’s good.  And also…”  She was having trouble finding the words.  “I can help people.”

Lilith narrowed her eyes.  “Yes, you said that.”

Mira frowned.  “No one forced me, though.  I did it on purpose.  That's…I meant to.  And I don't care if it's hard.  I want to learn.  I can help.”

Lilith shook her head and sighed.  Mira watched her wings ripple; it was mesmerizing.  “I would have hoped for better from Mary.  You know, when I was your age, all I wanted to be was chosen.  I had been raised to be a hunter and a sacrifice.  I was so blind.  By the time I got older, even with the end of it in front of my face, watching someone, a sister, die in agony in front of the people who loved her, all I could think was ‘my turn now.’”

Lilith lowered her gaze from the ceiling to Mira.  “Do you know how Halobearers die?”

Mira shook her head.  “It's almost always the same.  They fight, they protect, in whatever way is suitable to the world they live in, and then a tarask appears.  And once or twice someone banished it with a divinium weapon.  But mostly, it rips the Halobearer apart before she realizes that phasing doesn’t work against tarasks.  And then there's a new Halobearer who barely understands her power.  And on and on and on.”

Mira chewed her lip.  “It's different now though, right?  They didn't get my…they didn't get Ava.  And they haven't gotten me yet.  And I won't let them.  And you won't let them.  And I'll keep learning.  And someday, one of you will finally tell me what's really going on, and I'll be able to help, and we'll win.”

Lilith laughed at that, but with a smile Mira thought was genuine, and picked up her glass and nodded as she gestured with it in Mira’s direction.  “Well, cheers to that then.”  She took a sip and frowned.  “Doesn’t even taste like there’s…”  Lilith looked at Mira, or rather at her glass of orange juice.  “Oh.”  She blinked.  “I gave you the wrong glass.”  Lilith squeezed her eyes shut.  “Why didn’t you say something.”

Mira couldn’t understand.  “About what?  You gave us both orange juice.”

“You couldn’t…you can’t taste the difference?”

“I thought it was fresher here.”

Lilith put out her cigarette, swapped their glasses, then downed the remainder of Mira’s orange juice, or what used to be Mira’s orange juice, in one large gulp.

“Alright then.  We never speak of this to your parents, and everything will be fine.  Come on, I need to get some food in you, and some water, then you can take the bed.”

****

When Mira awoke, her mouth tasted awful, and she had a throbbing headache between and behind her eyes that, for some reason, the Halo did nothing to diminish.  She smacked her tongue against her mouth in an effort to get rid of the taste, but it didn’t work.  She rubbed her eyes, then sat up quickly as she realized where she was.  That proved to be a mistake.  She felt like her head was about to explode from the inside out.  And the light.  When had the light turned to the service of Reya?

She looked around and found that she was alone.  No Lilith and, after a brief search, no food, and no path down or out of the Tower.  She hazarded a look outside, and saw that she was well over a hundred meters in the air, looking out over a city unlike any she had ever seen, domes and columns and then all manner of unfamiliar and shockingly intact buildings as far as the eye could see.  Mira’s stomach protested, loudly. She sighed, went back inside, activated the Halo, and fell through the floor.

Chapter Text

Reconciliation is a Lie

Reject the Prisons of Flesh

The Homeland Suffers Without You

Fight the Tyrant Here, Defeat Her at Home!

Slow and Steady

Love Live the Queen!

Partnership, Not Possession

Adriel Lives!

-a selection of graffiti from the streets of Pandemonium, formerly Vatican City and Rome, circa 4 A.F.

The throne was enormous, black marble cut in the shape of flames framing a red-cushioned seat.  Symmetrical flames out to the sides reached up at a distance that suggested to Mira a place for Lilith to reach with her wings, to rest them, or perhaps to hook onto a protrusion and stretch comfortably.  Around the base, skeletal figures seemed to reach towards the seat in supplication.  There were no steps to ascend; anyone who could not teleport, or at least fly, would have difficulty reaching this seat.  Mira though that it was the most amazing piece of art that she had ever seen.

Unfortunately, it did not look edible, and so was useless to her.

Mira turned away from the throne, and immediately winced away from the morning sunlight.  Late morning.  This part of the tower was open on all sides, with Lilith’s chamber above supported by a series of enormous black columns around the edge of the room, if it could be called a room.  Mira could see that all around were buildings, Old World buildings, brown, orange, yellow, and white, ornate and enormous.  She walked to the edge of the level and looked out onto a grand plaza below, the center of which the Tower appeared to occupy.  To her left, the plaza was bounded by a great series of columns at the front of a broad, domed building more ornate than anything Mira had ever seen.  And moving to and fro in the plaza, more people than Mira had ever seen in one place at once.

She felt, as she looked down at the people below, that there was something strange about the way the morning sunlight struck them, something about the color…

“May I help you?”

Mira managed not to accidentally jump off the edge in front of her.  She turned and saw a kindly looking person, maybe twenty centimeters taller than Mira, with short, wavy gray hair, more than their share of wrinkles, and wearing an outfit that was unfamiliar to Mira, with charcoal gray pants and jacket over a white shirt with buttons and an odd, angular collar.

Mira cleared her throat.  “No, or, um, maybe.  I just…”  Mira paused and tried not to make it clear what she was looking at as a puff of red mist separated momentarily from the person’s body, then slipped back in again.

“Ah, you must be Her Majesty’s guest.  She said you might come down before she returned.  You can call us Sam.  We are to accompany you if you wish to leave the Tower; she thought you might be hungry.”

“Oh, uh, is that…”  Mira wasn’t sure how to explain to a wraith-ridden she didn’t know that she was a Halobearer and Lilith was supposed to be protecting her from tarasks.  She thought it probably was a bad idea to explain it at all, actually.

“She said that she would join you shortly, and to ‘keep things quiet’ until she returned.  She said you would understand.”

Mira took a deep breath and nodded.  Then she reached inside herself and pushed at the Halo’s warmth, keeping it suspended at a distance.  She had gotten quite good at the process, but she hadn’t timed herself in a while; she had no idea what her limits would be.

Sam led her to the opposite edge, past the throne, and Mira saw what appeared to be a dark gray rope, or series of ropes, suspended over the edge of the Tower.  Sam touched a circle on a small podium, or odd pedestal, that rose a little over a meter from the floor.  The circle brightened from within and the ropes started to move.  Eventually, a large box of metal and glass was pulled into view, stopped level with the floor, and opened.

Mira closed her mouth when she saw Sam smirking at her.  “Shall we?”

****

“So your name is Sam?”  Mira tried and failed to make it sound like it was something other than a bad thing as the ground slowly rose to meet them.

They chuckled.  “What’s wrong with Sam?”

“Nothing, it’s just, uh…”

“What, did you know another Sam who teased you once, and pulled your ponytail?”

“Kidnapped me.”  Mira hadn’t meant to say it as bluntly as she did.

“Kidnapped you say.”  Mira could feel Sam staring at her.  “Well, we will not kidnap you.  This is the reverse, in fact, you are an uninvited guest, but welcome all the same, as the Queen says.  And what happened to this other Sam?  Do we bear a resemblance?”  Sam stuck out their chin and preened.

Mira tried not to laugh.  “No, not at all.  I don’t actually know where he is.  Now that I think about it, probably dead.”  She never had asked Beatrice what had happened back at the camp while she was running.  Probably Beatrice thought it was better if Mira didn’t know.

Sam nodded grimly.  “This is good, that the other Sam has perished.  There can be only one.”

“What?!”

Sam’s frown snapped into laughter.  “It is a joke, an old joke.  You are too young, this is before your time.”  Mira felt a small jolt run through her as the box stopped, and swallowed hard whatever in her gut.  “Ground floor.  Follow me, please.”

Mira tried not to gape at the splendor, and scale, of the square and the surrounding buildings.  Pale columns lined the entrances to enormous stone buildings, the largest Mira had ever seen this close.  As Sam led her down streets paved in gray stone, lined with low walls of irregular brown stone or faded brick, Mira also tries not to gape at the parade of crimson that passed before her eyes with every person who walked by.

****

“We were sold a lie!”  A man, wraith-ridden and black-eyed (and therefore actively possessed, or so Mira had been taught), was standing on a wooden box on the street corner, shouting at passersby.  He was speaking Italian, which was not a language Mira knew, but between her Spanish and Portuguese, she thought she understood what the man was saying.  “What of our homes?  Our people?”

Mira watched as passersby grumbled and frowned.  Two wraiths emerged from their hosts and hissed loudly at the speaker.  One person spat at his feet.  “What is he talking about?”

Sam huffed.  “Just some fool.  Thinks he knows better than anyone else.  Wants to give up the biggest advantage we've ever had against the Tyrant.  Probably paid off.”

“You think there is partnership here, in this place?!?  This world was doomed before you ever set foot here!  Will you doom your owns homes as well!?!?  The true fight awaits us all!”

A voice shouted from somewhere behind Mira “Get down from there and I'll show you a true fight!”

Sam chuckled.  “Come on, let's get some food in you.  If violence ensues, I doubt you'll appreciate watching on an empty stomach.”

****

Sam insisted Mira have bacon (“the grease will help, trust me”), and Mira insisted on trying a cornetto, which was sweeter than the croissants she was used to, and filled with chocolate.  Sam pushed for her to have some orange juice, but Mira didn't even want to think about oranges; she stuck to water.  Mira barely looked up until she was nearly done eating.

“Why are there so many…of you?”

The restaurant looked out onto an open square filled with ancient statues, and people walking to and fro.  Most of them were wraith-ridden.  None were committing the sort of senseless slaughter that Mira had been taught to expect from wraith demons raiders.

Sam rested their head on their hand and narrowed their eyes at Mira, though not unkindly.  “You're very mysterious, did you know that?”

Mira wasn’t sure why the restaurant was so warm all of a sudden.  “What?  I’m just…no?”

“You appear out of nowhere as a guest of the Queen.  The appearing out of nowhere, understandable, but the Queen has no guests, and no time for children.”

“I’m thirteen,” muttered Mira.

“An old lady then, but she has no time for those either.  Not just a guest, but an honored one, to be treated with care, and eventually personally escorted?  Strange, but you could be from anywhere.  We would guess Chengdu, if we had to guess just from looks, but eyes like yours are not uncommon in any of the Free Cities.  And then there’s your accent, un po’ francese , but more American even, a very rare accent these days.  And on top of it all, you know nothing of wraiths, or the Free Cities, which means you are wholly without culture or understanding of the world.  Yet we cannot imagine the Queen deciding to visit some… come si dice …backwater and finding you by chance, much less getting you drunk in her private chambers.  So yes, you are very, very mysterious.”

Mira felt her skin prickling.  “I'm not.  I've just never been here before.  You don't have to be mean about it.”

Sam grunted.  “Mmm.  Forgive us, dear, we did not wish to give offense.  There are many of us here because here is where we find purpose and community.  There are no safer places for humans than the Free Cities, and no better place for wraiths to harm the Tyrant.  This world was nothing to her once, and now she drains her power propping up her puppets with supplies, with Angels to lead them.  The harder she grasps here, the more she lets other realms slip through her fingers.  And one day, it will be too much even for her, and all people will rise up as one, and be free of her.”  They shrugged.  “The more of us who share the bond, the mightier we become.  The Shining Ones do not do well against us.  Come.”

Sam stood up and nodded to the wraith-ridden who seemed to be in charge and led Mira out into the sunlight.

“Is there a celebration going on?”  Mira asked because of the volume of entertainers that seemed to be filling the square.  There were a pair of jugglers, a group of people playing string instruments while two women sang something haunting and low, fire-eaters who appeared to be competing to outdo each other, and a group of wraith-ridden tumblers who were performing feats of balance and strength that no human could have performed unaided.  Mira had once had a human pyramid described to her, but had never seen or heard of an inverted human pyramid before.

Sam looked around.  “No.  They are just performing.  There’s always a crowd here, and so there are always artists in search of a crowd.”

Sam led her from the square, and through winding roads to a smaller square, longer and more rectangular.  Here, rather than performers, there were rows of stalls, really writing desks under small canopies, where wraith-ridden sat and scratched at paper with quills across from people sitting in chairs.  Every person writing was not only wraith-ridden, but had another, unbound wraith looming behind or to the side of them.  Next to the stalls was an enormous congregation of wraiths, a cloud of them stretching across the space, though there was something strangely orderly about them.

“...are they waiting in line?”

Sam laughed sharply.  “They are.”

“For what?”

Sam pointed to the people sitting, unbonded to any wraith, in front of the various desks.  “They are here to be bound, but those to whom they would bind cannot see or hear them.  This is not the only way it is done, but this is considered a particularly…romantic?  There is a sense of romance to doing it this way.  This place is famous for it; a bond formed here is considered auspicious by those with a superstitious way of seeing the world.  The wraith speaks, the bonded one writes, and the human hears or reads, as they prefer.  If the human is charmed by the words of their suitor, they return within the week and exchange further messages, and eventually arrange a time and place for bonding.”

Sam leaned in closer and whispered.  “You should be more discrete, oh venerated elder.  The Queen told me to expect your sight, but others will make dangerous assumptions.”

Mira swallowed and fought down the heat in her cheeks.  “I thought wraiths possessed humans against their will.”

Sam shrugged.  “This was the way of things once.  Some still do, though the practice has been outlawed in the Free Cities.  Those turn to banditry, eventually, when they are found and banished, and so it is rare here.  Sometimes there is a kidnapping, of course, but–”

“Seneschal, a word, please!”

Sam turned her head, then looked back at Mira.  “A moment, please.  Will you wait over there?”  She gestured to the wall of a building next to a narrow street or alley.  Mira walked over and leaned against it while Sam spoke to a pair of wraith-ridden who looked at her with deference, and perhaps fear.

The hand that covered Mira’s mouth was too fast and too strong for her to scream as the light from the square retreated from the shadows of the alleyway, and Sam with it.  Mira almost phased through the hand, before the thought of summoning a tarask scared her to stillness.  But biting wouldn't summon a tarask, and so the hand holding her nearly lost a finger.

“Bitch!”  It was a man's body that shouted, but the black eyes said that it was a wraith that chose the words.  He had two friends, also shrouded in red mist and with jet-black eyes, who blocked either exit to the alleyway.  Mira had played this game before, though not against wraith-ridden.

She took a step, feinting towards one before using that foot to pivot and push herself back the way she came.  She made it two steps past the other, towards where a shadow she thought was Sam still stood in the distance, before she felt rough skin grasping at her right wrist, and the pain in her arm was so sharp that she couldn't tell whether the sound of her shoulder popping was real or in her head.

In either event, the roughness at her wrist slid away and was replaced by cool air as she stumbled to the ground.  The scream from behind her scratched wrongness down her spine.  She turned and saw the wraith-ridden who grabbed her, his right arm twisted behind him at an impossible angle, his forearm a crushed and bloody mess.  Behind him the air burned orange and black before resolving into Lilith.

“Close your eyes.”  Lilith said the words softly, but Mira listened, at least until the sound of the man dying quieted.  Unfortunately, she opened her eyes too soon, and saw Lilith teleport first to one, then the other of the remaining wraith-ridden and rip them to pieces as they tried to run.

Mira looked away again, and tried to focus on the oddly comforting ache of the Halo putting her shoulder back together properly.  When Lilith materialized in front of her in a burst of black-orange flame, Mira was struck by the fact that Lilith’s claws looked clean.  She watched as Lilith retracted the ones on her more human-looking left hand.

Lilith cocked an eyebrow, but her face might have been otherwise carved from stone.  “Care to take in the sights?”

****

It didn’t feel like going through the portal made by Ava’s Halo.  Mira hadn’t known what to expect when that happened, hadn’t paid close attention, but there was nothing about the feeling of moving from one place to another.  This had a feeling, a heat, a tingling sensation on the skin like hitting her funny bone but everywhere and then the alleyway was gone and she was surrounded by stone walls and ceiling and thick columns, and a ragged hole that led sideways into darkness.

“Where are we?”

Lilith looked around; Mira might have called her expression “wistful.”  “The catacombs under the Vatican.  This is where Mary began to break Reya’s hold on me, and where we freed Adriel from his imprisonment.”  She turned and led Mira into the hole, or tunnel.  As they went, Lilith spoke of the past, of how her mothers infiltrated this place while they were selecting their new leader, how Ava had trained to make her way through to find a myth and with it, end a tradition of suffering and death.

Mira looked around the cave where Adriel was once imprisoned.  “How did he…you said he could see through the divinium?  But if Angels can see through divinium, then why did…”

Lilith hummed.  “Adriel, or any Angel, can bond to a specific piece of divinium.  Entangle themselves with it.  Adriel did so with most of the divinium in this world before he was imprisoned, but you are correct, that would have been a liability for your mother.  It was a condition of hers, in fact, of all of ours, that the divinium used for her tattoos was untainted by any such entanglement.  Though it took some persuading for her to accept that not all divinium was an intrinsic security risk.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

Lilith didn’t say anything at first, and bit her lip.  “Your mothers once tried to make it so what happened to you would never happen to anyone else.  And they failed.  But what we learned, the mistakes we made…you deserve to know.  You deserve to understand, as much as you can.  You’re a part of this now.  A weapon in a war you were born into.  I can’t…I can’t give you the choice you should have.  It’s too late for that.  But you deserve to know why.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Lilith looked at her.  Mira thought she looked sad.  “Someday you will.”

****

“So you just stole all the statues and art from all over the world and put them here?”  Lilith had called the place a museum, but it looked more like a huge storage closet for pretty things to Mira. And books.  And boxes of who knew what.  The room with the painted ceiling was nice, though.

Lilith huffed.  “No.  Plenty was already stolen, which makes this a species of asset recovery.  For the rest…there were a lot of places in the world that had art that was going to be lost forever, whether to Reya or to war or to the disasters she sent.  It felt wrong to let so much disappear.  I saved what I could.”

They walked through a door that led to a covered walkway next to an open and overgrown garden.  In the middle, covered halfway up its height in leafy vines, was a statue of a man.  He had a short beard and straight hair cut just above his glasses.  He was dressed in long sleeves and long pants, with what looked like a sort of collar tucked into a collar around his neck.  He was kneeling, his hands on his knees, and looking up at the sky.

Lilith approached the statue and waved her left hand.  The air around the Statue blurred and hummed and the leaves bent as if moved by a great wind, and then the vines began to bend and whip about before retreating to the earth.  When they did, they revealed a plaque beneath.  The inscription read: “Father Vincent.”

“How did…um, I mean, are you like…the Angels do something that, I mean not exactly, but the air blurs…what are…”  Mira trailed off, not sure how to ask what she wanted to without being rude, or embarrassing herself more than she already had.

“What am I?”  Lilith didn't sound upset, at least.  “Well I can't remember how I got this way, but I'm fairly sure it was Reya's doing.  Adriel thought she was trying to improve upon the tarasks, make a version that was more independent, that could sustain itself in our world to kill him.  But I'm not a tarask, although parts of me resemble them.”  She held up her right hand and looked at it as she said so.  “I can do things they can't.  Things that, as you say, are more like an Angel.  But they can't move through space like I can.  Or between realms like I can.  Not without a Halo.”

Mira waited for Lilith to say more, but she just stood there, staring at the statue.  Mira nodded at it.  “Who was he?”

“My mentor.  The man who murdered my sister, Shannon, who bore the Halo before Ava.  A traitor, until I switched sides and joined him.  And our savior, when Ava came back and was too strong the first time we confronted her.  He sacrificed himself so the rest of us could escape, and try again later.  That attempt went similarly poorly, all things considered.”

“Until the Mirrorsouled saved you?”

Lilith turned to her sharply.  “Yes.  I suppose you've read Yasmine’s History of the Founding?”

Mira nodded.  “But, um, I also saw it?  With the Halo, it sometimes…”

Lilith started laughing.  “Oh no!  So you met your mother and had a vision where you chopped my arm off and fought Verchiel to the death?  What a reunion that must have been.”

“Um…your arm was already off when it started.  And that wasn't when I met her, it was later.”  Mira didn't mean to mumble.  “Why do you have a statue of him then?”

Lilith didn't answer right away.  “Sometimes people have a hole punched through them.  Sometimes it’s eaten away over time.  And they don’t know how to live without trying to find something to fill it.  Some people find something to numb the pain; he did.  Alcohol, for him.  Some people find a cause, or better yet a religion; something to believe in, to devote themselves to.  That was him as well, once the alcohol led him to hurt people by mistake, and the hole got worse.”

“I hated him, at first.  And when I joined Adriel, and he and I were on the same side again, I avoided him.  Tried not to think about what he had done.  And then he turned his back on Adriel, and I thought very hard about killing him.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I suppose I didn't want to be like him.  Rushing back and forth, desperate to define myself by my loyalty to a figure I didn't understand.  I wanted to be free in a way that he wasn't.  And back then, that meant making a choice that wasn't about how badly he had hurt me.”

Mira regretted her next words almost as soon as they were out of her mouth.  “Are you?”

Lilith looked at her curiously.  “Am I what?”

Mira swallowed hard.  “Free?”

Lilith sighed deeply then, and the corners of her mouth and eyes turned down.  “No.  Not until Reya is defeated.  There's no one else who can do what I can do, bring together everyone we need to win.  To give them what they need.  Adriel gave them something to believe in.  A future where they could be free.  I’m the heir to that hope.”

“So what?”

Lilith rolled her eyes.  “And there's the other one.  What do you mean, ‘so what?’”

“Why do you care about that?  Why does it matter?  You're as bad as my…as Beatrice.”

Lilith scoffed.  “Please.  I got you drunk for the first time and let you have a tour of Pandemonium.  Beatrice would never.”  Lilith's mouth flattened for a moment before she continued.  “It matters because there are very, very few people who are strong enough to someday, with the right plan and perfect execution, kill Reya.  The closest anyone has ever come involved diverting enough prayer from her to render her vulnerable, which requires an alternate focus for worship, and the proper siphoning infrastructure.”

“But it's more than that, isn't it?”  Lilith looked at her in a way that made Mira's stomach drop in anticipation of getting stabbed.  

“It is.  Because someday, if we win, all that power is going to go somewhere.  And I won't allow another Reya.”

****

They were back in Lilith’s chambers.

Lilith opened one set of glass doors and led Mira outside to a balcony.  Mira could see now that it was part of the Tower that ended at the level of Lilith’s floor.  There was no railing.

“I’ve been trying to decide what to do with you.”

Mira swallowed past a sudden dryness in her mouth.  “What do you mean?”

Lilith didn’t look at her.  She was still in a way that Mira found unnerving.  “I hope your parents are alright.  I believe they are.  I have…I believe it.  But wherever they are, however they have gone to ground or wherever they may have fled, they are not here.  And you are.  I don’t blame them for thinking of me first…or ever for thinking I was their only option.  But I’m not one, not really.  There is so much I need to do now, things I cannot do with you at my side.”

Mira tried not to let her disappointment show at the idea that she wouldn’t get to stay with Lilith, or her fear at the idea that maybe her mothers weren’t alright after all.  “I understand.  So…”

Lilith let the word hang for a time, and the only sound was the wind whipping about the Tower.  Mira felt it blowing strands of her own hair loose, and couldn’t help but notice that it didn’t seem to touch Lilith’s hair at all.  “I’m not abandoning you.  Whatever I do, I need to make sure you’re as safe as I can make you.  And I think I know how.  I just need…”  Lilith paused, then turned to look down at Mira.  “Let’s take a little journey together.”

****

The tingling heat resolved into something warm and earthy, and all around Mira saw trees that looked familiar.  “Where are we?”

Lilith snorted.  “We’re in the middle of nowhere.  Energy signatures are traceable, and I’m not interested in being caught off guard when Reya finally figures out mine.  We’ll fly from here.”  Lilith shrugged sparks from her shoulders, and flame, and her wings spread wide as she held out a hand for Mira to join her.

“Fly where?”

Lilith smirked.  “It’s a surprise.”

Chapter Text

I didn’t hate myself as much today.  I miss Bea.  I still don’t think I can stand to see her.  I keep imagining her looking at me the way I look at myself.  I know I shouldn’t.  I hate it though.  I hate that it hurts so much that I can’t even stand to get out of bed.  I could be helping.  I should be helping.  Bea could be in danger, is in danger, and I just.  Then I think what if it comes back.  What if I hurt her again.  I don’t trust myself.  But it helps.  It helps to talk.  And I’m not scared with her.  Maybe because we’ve already hurt each other so much, it’s like what else can we do to each other.  Stab me through the chest?  Cut off a limb?  Been there, done that.  And she knows what it felt like.  She gets it.  Not being in control.  The regret.  I laugh sometimes when I think back on everything we’ve been through and where we are now.  I don’t know what I would do without her.  And then sometimes I look at her and I just feel…I just….  It’s so complicated sometimes.  But I’m so thankful.  And I try to let that be enough.

-undated entry from the journal of Ava Silva, the Betrayer of Humanity, estimated composition 2 B.F.

Mira almost cried when she figured it out.  When she recognized the bend of the creek below in the moonlight.  The rock that she and her friends laid on in early summer, before it got too hot to be anywhere outside but in the shade.  She was going home. 

Lilith flew them low over the treetops, clutching Mira close to her chest, but Mira could still see the brightening ahead of them as they approached, then lost it as they swooped up before arching over the top of the Cradle before diving down at a speed that had Mira squeezing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth to keep from screaming.  And then they stopped.

When Mira opened her eyes ever so slightly, she found herself face to face with an expanse of irregular stone.  Lilith held her with only her left arm, while her right arm with its enormous clawed hand pierced the stone delicately, the tips barely inserted into the surface.  Her wings were nowhere to be seen.

“...are you going to climb somewhere, or…”

Mira felt as much as she heard the growl in Lilith’s chest.  “I haven’t done this for a while, and I can’t remember…just, tell me which window is Mary’s.”

Mira knew Lilith couldn’t see her face, but it didn’t stop her from twisting her eyebrows in disbelief.  “How am I supposed to know that?  I’ve never tried to break into her bedchamber from the outside!  Was this the plan?”

“Just…shut up.  Let me think for a minute, I’m sure I can–”

“Oh my GOD, you have no creep anymore, what happened to you?” 

****

The Holy Mother stood in a sleep robe with her arms crossed.  “You know you ruined this, don’t you?  I could have done a whole bit.  ‘I abjure thee, demon.’  ‘Get thee behind me, foul devil.’  I could have run with it, if you knew how to be the slightest bit quiet during an infiltration.”

“So sorry to deny you the pleasure of telling yourself a joke so that you could laugh at how funny you are.”

“How are you even more rude?  You come here unannounced, you break into my home–”

“You invited us in.”

“--AND you interrupt me, again, in my own home.  No manners.”

Mira looked back and forth between the two of them, having backed herself halfway to the wall.  She had stopped herself with the terrifying realization that if the Holy Mother provoked Lilith to violence, Mira would be the only one with even a chance to stop her.  Mira wished, belatedly, that her mothers had prepared her for combat against someone who could apparently teleport at will.

Lilith bent her head slightly, glowering, and Mira was reminded of a cat readying itself for a kill.  Then she snorted.

Then the Holy Mother’s body started to shake.

Then they both began to laugh.

The Holy Mother reached forward and wrapped the Queen of Demons in a hug, and Mira was too shocked to pay attention to the fact that her mouth was hanging open.

“You’ve been away too long.  What kind of sister are you?”

Lilith rolled her eyes and hugged Mother back.  “I’ve been busy, as you know.”

Mother smiled.  “Yeah, yeah, well it’s good to see you.  I missed you, even if you don’t deserve it.”

“Mmm, I see the title’s gone to your head.  So arrogant.”  Lilith didn’t sound even a little mad.

“Just say you missed me too instead of trying to act all tough in front of the kid.”

“Yes, yes, I missed you too.”  They separated, both smiling.

Until Mother spoke up again.  “So you tell her how I whooped you back before you got your superpowers?”

****

The Holy Mother set Mira up in a nearby room.  “Her Royal Majestic Demoness can sleep on the floor in my room.  She and I are going to catch up, you wait here and I’ll send someone up with dinner.”

“Can we talk?”  Mira’s voice didn’t quite catch in her throat as she asked.

Mother gave her a small smile, something Mira chose to read as apologetic.  “Of course.  Come here baby girl.”  Mira fell easily into the arms of the closest person she had know to a mother for the first thirteen years of her life.  “You OK?”  Mira shook her head.  “You want to talk first?  Lilith can wait, I’m here if you–”

“Not yet.  I’m not…it’s been a lot.”  Mira wiped a streak of wetness from her cheek, and fought very hard to make sure no other fell.

“If you’re here with her, I’m sure it has.  But it’s going to be OK.  She and I will talk, and we’ll figure it out, I promise.”  Mira nodded, though she had trouble believing it.  “Hey, what do we say?”

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper?”

“Not that one.”

“Anyone lays a finger on me, I’ll be avenged sevenfold?”

“Stop being a brat.”

Mira sniffed, and hated the way she sounded, she wasn’t a kid anymore, crying like this.  “They’re not watching over me.  They don’t know where I am, I don’t even know where they are or if they’re even–”

“Hey.”  Mother cradled Mira’s face in both hands.  “Your parents are watching over you, always.  Always.  Even when they couldn’t be in the same place as you, everything they did was to make a world where you could be safe and happy.  So you could live the kind of life neither of them ever did.  And wherever they are right now, I know, I know that they are doing everything in their power to make sure that you are safe.  OK?”

Mira nodded and did her best to wipe her face.  “OK.”

Mother pulled her in for a hug.  “I’m sure it’s been a lot.  But it’s gonna be OK.  When you’re ready, we’ll talk, alright?”

Mira nodded, and hugged more tightly.

****

The knock came while Mira was staring out the window.  She was only next door to the Holy Mother’s room, and had a view of most of the Cradle from her window.  It was late enough that someone would have had to make a special trip to the kitchens.  She had been squeezing the tips of her fingers, one by one, thumb to pinkie and back again.

“Come in.”

She heard the soft clatter of a tray against the stone floor, then turned just in time to see the curve of brown skinned neck before a curtain of dark curly hair obscured her vision.

“I missed you so much,” Nadia whispered to the top of Mira’s head.

Mira closed her eyes and breathed deeply.  Nadia smelled like she had spent the day outdoors, like grass and sun-drenched skin.  “I missed you too.”  It took her a moment to register the orange-pink glow behind her eyelids.

“Mira?”  Nadia's voice was soft.

Mira felt the warmth in her chest before she opened her eyes.  “No no no, I'm not supposed to…”  She shut her eyes again and tried to find that space of equilibrium, removed from the Halo just so, but it was so hard all of a sudden.

“Hey that’s, wow, OK, just, hey…”  Nadia took Mira’s right hand and put it on her chest, then put her right hand on Mira’s.  “Just breathe with me, OK?  In…out…in…out…”

Mira found herself focusing as much on Nadia’s heartbeat as her breathing.  On the feel of Nadia’s skin, not-quite-smooth from the sweat of the day.  A breath.  Another.  She was safe.  She was home.  She was with Nadia.  The last thought sparked the Halo again, but less this time.  

Mira opened her eyes to find Nadia staring at her expectantly.  “Mira?”  Nadia chuckled.  “A HALO!?”

Mira started laughing only a little after Nadia did.

She ate slowly.  She had so much to tell, and the food grew cold before she was done, but she didn’t mind.  She had much to hear as well.  Matthieu had apparently taken Mira’s departure quite hard, and had been moping all summer, and the spring before.

“I think he might have a crush on you,” Nadia murmured, avoiding Mira’s eyes.

“Too bad for him that I’ve got a crush on someone else.”  Mira said it without thinking, and regretted it almost instantly.  She’d been gone for months, almost half a year, even, and it’s not like they were anything before they left, or talked about it.  It occurred to her all at once that Nadia might not even have liked her the same way then, maybe she just wanted to see what it felt like, maybe she’d decided to try with someone else when Mira left.

She had trouble remembering those doubts when Nadia kissed her.  It surprised her at first, to the point that Nadia pulled back before Mira could react.

“Oh, sorry, um, if you don't–”

By then Mira had recovered herself enough to kiss Nadia back.  It was a close-mouthed thing, and tentative; Mira had no interest yet in anything more adventurous.  Certainly the open-mouthed kissing her mothers displayed was out of the question.  Anything they did was suspect at best, and generally gross to think about.  Unless Nadia disagreed.

“Hey.  What's up?  You froze again.”

“Oh, uh…”  Mira couldn't think of a way to explain her thought process without blushing worse than she already was.  At least she wasn't the only one.

Nadia rolled her eyes and moved from the floor to the bed.  She propped the pillow against the wall and slid back against it.  Then she spread her legs and patted the bed.  “Come here.”

Mira sat down as instructed and snuggled in, her back against Nadia, and Nadia's arms curling around her shoulders.  “It's not fair.”

“What's not fair?”

“You got taller faster than me.”

Nadia's laugh rumbled against Mira's spine.  “I don't think you grew at all.  You're cute.  Pocket-sized.”

Mira slapped Nadia's thigh.  “You're so mean.  Is that what happens when you get tall, or were you always like this?”

Nadia got still for a moment.  “Do you…my mom says I'm getting gangly, that this is my ‘awkward stage,’ it's OK if you don't–”

“Can I beat her up?  That's so rude.  You're so pretty.”  Mira turned her head so she could look Nadia in the eyes.  “ So pretty.”

Nadia ducked her head and wiped the corner of her right eye with the heel of her hand.  “OK, well, no take backs.  And just so you know, you're like, the most beautiful person I've ever seen.  So.”

Mira scoffed.  “What?  No.”  Mira had not thought about her appearance often, being more concerned with whether she was fastest in a footrace or did the best at sparring for her age.  When it did occur to her to consider her own appearance, she thought of herself as decidedly average.  She didn't dislike anything particular about how she looked, other than her freckles, which didn't bother her that much, but she certainly didn't think she deserved that kind of compliment, certainly not from someone like Nadia. 

“I have a really hard time not staring when you're in the room.  And you don't even realize it, you're just walking around like it's no big deal that you have the most amazing eyes and freckles and just–”

“You like my freckles?”  Mira turned again to better judge Nadia's truthfulness.

Nadia stared at her with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow.

Mira ducked her head to hide her blush, though she doubted she would succeed.  “OK.  So what else do you like about me?”

Nadia paused for a minute.  “I like that you always try to make people feel safe.”

Something in Mira's chest tightened all the way up to her throat.

“When we're practicing, and the younger kids are learning something new and scared, you're always the first one to make them feel better.  Or like when we were reading in the library during that really bad thunderstorm last year, and you didn't make fun of me for still being scared of the thunder?  You just talked to me about figuring out how far away the lightning was, and counting between the flash and the thunder with me until it started to move away.  You made me feel so safe.  You make me feel safe.”

Mira tried and failed to clear her throat.  “OK, but that's…I mean, anyone would do that, it's not–”

She stopped when she felt Nadia shaking her head.  “No, they wouldn't.  They don't.  I didn't even say anything because Guillaume made fun of me before that, and you still saw how upset I was.”

“You jumped when we heard thunder.  It wasn't some big secret.”

“Shut up.  Stop trying to distract me.  It was special.  You're special.”

Mira pulled Nadia's hands into her lap and started to play with her fingers.  “I guess I felt like I…”  She trailed off.  So many of the things she thought about what was important were based on something that wasn't real anymore. 

“What's wrong?”

Mira hated the way her eyes burned.  “I was just thinking about my parents.  How they're alive.  Or they were.”

Nadia pressed her cheek to the back of Mira's head.  “How are you feeling about it?”

“I don’t know.”  Mira half thought she should be embarrassed to be crying, but Nadia had seen her cry before.  And Nadia slid took her hands back and hugged her warmly from behind; that helped.  “I’m just…I was so angry.  And I'm still angry when I think about it.  But then I think about how…I mean, they saved my life.  They literally fought off an army of tarasks and sent me to safety, and they could be hurt now, or dead, and I feel so guilty!”

Mira let Nadia hold her tight through the worst of her sobbing.  “Like who am I to be so angry?  It was important, I know it was important, I know they couldn’t….  And Mother acts like it's nothing, it’s not a big deal, and they were good to me.  They were so nice, and I learned so much, and it felt like home and I hate it because they still left me!!!”

Mira felt herself fall apart all at once.  Her belly and lungs tensing so fast with sobs that it felt like she would throw up, like she would never take a full breath again.  Her head throbbed, liquid flowing from eyes and nose and mouth and she was smacking her palms against her face as though the pain were some vermin that had attached itself to her, and if only she struck hard enough she might kill it and the pain would pass.  Her legs kicked out, uselessly; or perhaps the pain might leak out through her feet, if only she kicked hard enough, and long enough.  And through it all, Nadia held her, and whispered words that Mira couldn’t hear through her own cries, and at least she wasn’t alone.

Some time later, when Mira had mostly stopped, and only the occasional aftershock of anguish spasmed through her, she looked up at Nadia.  “I’m so gross right now.”

Nadia smiled at her, and wiped her eyes, though she had not cried nearly as much as Mira had.  Mira thought she was still so pretty.  “I don’t care.  I still think you’re amazing.  I’d still kiss you if you let me.”

Mira curled up her nose. “Ew, gross. I really am disgusting right now, I’m all snotty and–”  Nadia leaned down threateningly.  “--no, no, let me wipe some of this off, please, I’m going to die if you kiss me like this.”

“Mmm, I bet the Halo would bring you back.”

“No, Nadia!”  Mira thrashed about mildly and twisted up her face, trying to bring the hem of her shirt up to clean herself as Nadia brought her lips closer and closer, menacing.  She barely made a clean space, relatively, before Nadia made good on her threat.

Nadia spent the next few minutes using her own shirt to gently wipe the crust and remnants of wetness from Mira's face.  Mira took the opportunity to stare.  

“I’m sorry for your pain.  But I’m really glad you’re my best friend.”

Mira tried to smile back.  “Me too.  Will you stay for a while?”  She knew Nadia would have to go back to her room, but Mira didn't want her to go just yet.

Nadia held her then as she laid down, and Mira only barely felt Nadia getting up as she drifted off to sleep.

****

Mira was startled awake by Mother shouting at her to run, though the shouting had been disconnected from the dream.  She thought it was, at any rate; whatever she had been dreaming of slipped from her as soon as her eyes opened.  She sat up in the dark, alone, though she could hear a murmuring from across the room.  She walked over and pressed her ear to the wall.

“You're wrong.”  The Holy Mother's voice, muffled.  “That doesn't have anything to do with anything.  She didn't even have–”

“... see wraiths.”  Lilith, quieter, so that Mira could only catch a few words.

“Of course she can see wraiths, if she has a Halo she–”

“...fore, Mary…ight she left, she could…”

“You don't even know.  You're guessing.  She's just a kid.”

“...what I saw, Mary…best chance…”

They were quiet for long enough that Mira started to worry that they knew she was awake somehow.

“You don't know, Lilith.  You can't know that it'll play out like you hope.  It's not supposed to be like this.”

“...hard choices?”

Another stretch of quiet. 

“Goodnight Lilith.”

“Goodnight Mary.”

Mira crawled on fingertips and toes back to bed, and tried very hard to go back to sleep.

****

“Rise and shine, kiddo.”  Mira rubbed sleep from her eyes at the smell of fresh eggs and bacon.  “Get it while it's hot.”

Mira was greeted by the sight of the Holy Mother carrying a tray with two plates piled high with bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and berries.  

Lilith drifted into the room behind her, yawning.  “Where's mine?”

“Oh I'm so sorry, your royalship, we didn't have any gold-plated dishes, I wouldn't want you to have to lower yourself to we poor unwashed mass–”

Lilith interrupted by trying to flick Mother’s ear, but the Holy Mother caught her finger and twisted, so that the Demon Queen yelped in pain. 

“No patience.  You're supposed to set an example for your subjects, you know.”  Mother shoved the other plate into Lilith's hands. 

“No peaches?”

“Do I look like a short-order cook?  Damn.  Spoiled as hell.”

Lilith muttered something under her breath that Mira didn't catch, then sat on the floor and began to eat.

Mira swallowed a bite of her eggs.  “Mother?”

“Yeah?  What is it, kiddo?”

“How did you escape from the Shining Ones?”

The Holy Mother pursed her lips.  “Not as easily as I hoped.  They kept a pretty good watch on me for a while.  Then Uriel got taken out, and they started to panic.  Managed to get myself loose after that.”

“Oh…did you know that, um…”  Mira looked down at her chest.

“Yeah, Lilith filled me in.  I’m sorry that happened.  Glad you’re still with us, though.”  Mother shared a look with Lilith that Mira couldn’t read.

Lilith cleared her throat.  “So, Mira.  Mary has forbidden me from showing my face among the general populace, but I genuinely can’t tell how much of what she’s feeding me is nonsense.  You’d be straight with me, wouldn’t you?  How do you think the rest of the Cradle would react if I joined them for lunch?  Or better yet, sparring?”

Mother snorted.

“Well…”  Mira tried to imagine it.  The Queen of Hell, joining them for lunch?  “I guess…if the Holy Mother knows you, then maybe the Sister Warriors do too?  Or enough not to try to fight you?  Probably half the trainees would scream or run, and the other half would just stare.  Nadia would probably ask you about Brother Carlo and was he really awful as he seemed from the Commentaries .  Actually, she would probably try to talk your ear off about anything she could think of.”  Mira frowned, imagining Nadia smiling admiringly up at Lilith, picking her brain excitedly.  She didn’t like the image.  She found herself especially bothered by the fact that Lilith was taller than Nadia, though she wasn’t sure why.

Lilith chuckled.  “I can see you’re quite keen on the idea.  Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to bore your little friend to tears with a discussion of Adrielite political divisions in the far realms.”

“Oh no, please no, tell me you’re not still pitching yourself as that asshole’s heir.”

Mira almost choked at Mother’s language.

Lilith frowned.  “I know what he was and what he wasn’t.  And I know he wasn’t the villain you all insist upon, not all the way through.”

“Well he sure as hell wasn’t the Second Coming either.  And yeah, didn’t kill me when he had the chance, real grateful and all, but I guaran-damn-tee you that he wouldn’t have been better than Reya.”

“He would have.  He would have been awful in his own ways.  But he offered freedom for the first time in my life when she brainwashed me into doing her bidding.  So don’t tell me they were the same, because I know exactly –”

“Why do you keep talking about Adriel like he was bad?”  Mira hadn’t meant to interrupt, she just couldn’t keep herself from asking.

Mother rolled her eyes to the ceiling.  

Lilith gaped at Mira, then at the Holy Mother.  “Je…how many of Yasmine’s books did you let her read?”

“What do I look like, the library police?!  I was just glad she was reading!  She reads a lot!  Great!  So what if Yas is her favorite, it’s not like that’s all she–”

“Her favorite!?!? ”  Lilith rubbed her left hand over her face.  “Her favorite.”

“What’s wrong with Sister Yasmine?”

The Holy Mother looked pointedly at Lilith.  “You’re the one throwing a fit, you go.”

Lilith sighed and rolled her eyes.  “Yasmine is…fine.  But she has some significant biases that have…colored her work.  You should not assume that a thing is true just in the way she says or implies just because she wrote it.  Some of that is deliberate, to avoid it becoming well-known how closely we all still work together.  Some of it is…just Yasmine.”  She chuckled.  “Maybe you’ll get to see what I mean soon.”

The Holy Mother shook her head.  “No, nope, absolutely not.”

Lilith looked at her.  “Don’t.  We talked about this.”  

“It’s dangerous.  What you’re…you know it’s dangerous.”

“And I did not create that danger, and I do not know any way to eliminate it short of taking the Halo, which could kill her, or killing Reya which…”  Lilith shook her head.

“You think this is my fault?”  Mother said it softly.  “What exactly was I supposed to do?  Tell her mom ‘sorry, kid’s not yours anymore?’  You know, you know there’s no way in hell I was keeping a daughter from seeing her mom.”

Lilith's breathing was even, though her eyes were intense in their focus.  “I know.  And I don’t think you could have done differently, not once they made their choice.  But I do not see any other option.  And I need your support.  This is not my decision to make alone, and they’re not around, and they chose you to be her guardian.  So?  If you see another path, tell me.”

They stared at each other for long enough that Mira began to wonder if they were having a conversation she couldn’t hear.  “Her moms are gonna rip your wings off if they find out you took her to the Protectorate.”

Lilith sighed, though it sounded to Mira more like relief than anything else.  When she spoke, her words had no heat to them, and she seemed strangely detached.  “Well as soon as one of them figures out how to reliably cross over to another realm, they can coordinate the damn Resistance, and they can manage supply distribution and logistics and be the damned figurehead for the Free Cities.  But short of that happening, I’m still it.  And that means I don’t have time to play babysitter or bodyguard or anything else to their daughter, with or without a Halo.  The world doesn’t revolve around their family, and they’ve screwed up enough without me following along and making it worse, and there is no safer place she could be than the Protectorate, and you know it, and they know it, they just can’t get over themselves long enough to– ”

“But give them a week.”

“Mary–”

“A week.  All your reasons, all of them, can wait a week.  The Resistance won’t break from going radio silent for a week.  The Cities won’t fall apart from missing a week’s worth of fresh produce exchange, and honestly you can bring her with you if you want.  The world didn’t fall apart today without you, it won’t fall apart tomorrow or the day after that, and the Protectorate will still be there, and all that implies.  Give them a week.” 

Lilith breathed heavily for a bit.  “Fine.  A week.  And I get to tell them you co-signed.”

“No.”

“Mary, I need this.  You said it yourself, they'll kill me if I do this and I'm the only one to blame.”

Mary snorted.  “Yeah, kill you with a st–”

Lilith's eyes opened wide and she cleared her throat loudly, interrupting whatever Mary had been about to say, then jerked her head twice towards Mira.

Mary looked at Mira impassively, then back at Lilith and smirked.  “Yeah, on second thought, they should be here for that conversation.  I want to be there too, actually.”

Lilith scoffed.  “You're insufferable, you know that?  You're supposed to mature as you age, you know.”

“Grandma Time-Dilation sure is feeling feisty today, huh?  Hard living without that Metamucil, huh?”

“I swear I will leave you on an island somewhere with a volleyball for companionship, do not test me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I could use the vacation, so maybe don't threaten me with a good time.”  Mother looked over at Mira.  “You good, kid?”

“What’s metamucil?”

****

The week passed slowly, with Mira confined to her room to avoid anyone learning her whereabouts, but it could have been worse.  Nadia claimed she was sick, with Mother’s approval, of course, and was able to sneak away to spend time with Mira, kissing, talking, cuddling, reading.  Mira quite liked the sound of Nadia’s voice when she read aloud, and Nadia was all too happy to oblige.  The histories read differently this time around, now that Mira had met so many of the major figures in them, and seen the truth of some of these events with her own eyes.  Nadia practically squealed when Mira confided about her visions; Mira thought it was adorable.

It was on the third day that Mary brought Mira the box.  It was simple, wooden, dark, with a brass latch and hinges.

“Sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.  But now that you know, I figure maybe you’d want to have these.  They wrote them during the pregnancy, and right after.  Wanted me to keep them for you until they were ready to meet you, or until they weren’t around anymore if things went bad.  Maybe they’ll help.”  Mother got up to leave.

“Can you stay?”

The Holy Mother nodded.  “If that’s what you want.”  And she sat down.

Mira opened the lid to find letters stacked neatly inside.  Her hands shook as she opened the first one.

Dear little bean,

I’m sorry you don’t have a name yet, by the time you read this you will.  Your mom and I just found out we’re having you and we’re so amazed and happy and scared.  Neither one of us really knows how to be a mom.  My mom, your avó, she died when I was very little.  She was a good mom, but most of my time as a kid I was raised by some very bad people who didn’t treat me nice, and my dad left us when I was little.  He never came back for me, so I guess he wasn’t a good dad either.  Your mom, your other mom (I think I’ll be mama, I like that), her parents were bad too.  They taught her to hate who she was and sent her far away.  I guess we had pretty good examples of what not to do.  I hope we can do better.

The world is hard right now.  There are a lot of people doing bad things.  But I hope we can make it better in time for you.  I wish I knew how.

Mama

Dearest Mira,

I felt you kick for the first time this morning.  Ava, your mama, looked at me with such wonder, and she reached out and took my hand and placed it on her belly.  And I felt you.  I haven’t stopped crying since.  I’m going to be a mother.

It’s such a strange thing, to love you so.  I don’t even know you yet, not really.  Who will you be when you read this?  Will you have your mama’s zest for life, for adventure?  Will you be careful like me?  Will you love to dance, to swim?  Will I teach you to fight for sport and pleasure, or to preserve your life against those who would take it from you?  Will we sound out the words of this letter together?  Will it be something you read to yourself in quiet moments as you grow?  I worry that it will be a memento mori, that these will be words that bring only pain, from a faceless woman you never knew.  But I hope it will be more.  

I hope so much to see you grow.  And thrive.  I do not know you yet, but I love you with all my heart, and I think I will never stop for as long as I live.

Mom

There were more, so many more.  More than Mira could bear then.  “Can I…can I take them with me?”

Mother rubbed Mira's back the way she always did when Mira was upset.  “Of course, baby girl.  These are yours.”

Mira managed another two before the week was up.

****

“When we arrive, I’ll provide letters of introduction, then leave.  You’ll be taken to Jillian, Camila, or both.  With any luck, your mothers will resurface soon, and if they don’t, I’ll go looking.  They can join you there, and when they ask how you got there, blame Mary.  In the meantime, stay put.  You should be able to use the Halo without issue, but best to check with Jillian or Camila, or Yasmine, before you try anything.  Just to be safe.”

Mira nodded.  Her skin was tingling and she was trying very hard not to bounce up and down.  She was going to meet the Mirrorsouled.  Jillian Salvius.  THE Sister Yasmine.  She reflected briefly on the number of legendary figures she had encountered over the past several months, but this was the most she had met at once, the first time she had known she would meet them in advance, and (though she would probably not admit this out loud in front of her parents or Lilith) these were the figures she would have most wanted to meet if she could have picked any three.

Lilith cocked her head.  “Are you squealing?”

Mira tightened her throat.  “No.”

Lilith narrowed her eyes.  “I have exceptional hearing.”

Mira feigned as much innocence as she had ever feigned in her life.

Lilith looked almost sad for a moment, then sighed.  “Mary did well with you.  Stay alive for a while and we’ll spend some more time together.”  Mira nodded, wide-eyed.  “And I don’t have much room to talk, but try not to be too hard on your mothers.  None of us have had easy choices for a very long time.  Especially not them.”

Mira swallowed and nodded again, if more hesitantly.  Then Lilith put her left hand on Mira’s shoulder, and the world warped black and red before her eyes.

When Mira’s vision cleared, they were in a sort of inverted dais, a round, tiled area, several meters in diameter, and surrounded by steps that wrapped around in a circle and led upwards.  At the top of the steps, at more or less regular intervals, stood at least a dozen guards in white and gold uniforms, and beyond them on one side was an enormous, squat, terraced building that curved away in either direction alongside tree-lined walkways.  Most of the guards carried crossbows, but at least three that Mira saw were pointing strange black poles at them; they reminded Mira vaguely of something Holy Mother had carried the night Mira fled the Cradle.  All of them dropped to their knees and pointed their weapons at Mira and Lilith as a loud noise began to sound, like a baby crying except in a regular rhythm.

The sound was soon joined by the rumble of footsteps, and more guards flooded the top of the steps, armed with spears and shields.  Several rushed down the steps and surrounded Mira and Lilith, spears leveled at their heads.

Lilith did not bother to cover her mouth when she yawned.

Chapter Text

Theirs is the True Voice of Heaven.  They are the Angel’s Bane.  They are the divine made flesh, whose glory saved the remnant of humanity from the end of all that is.  They are the Mirrorsouled, and we give thanks for their protection.  Let no servant of the Tyrant step foot within the Salvian Protectorate, lest the Voice of Heaven lay them low.  By their love are we blessed with salvation.

-an excerpt from the textbook “Civics and Salvation”, by Sister Yasmine Amunet, 10 year old - 13 year old edition

Mira had decided that she hated meeting new people.  She had not wanted to prejudge.  She had spent most of her life in the Cradle, and for whatever reason meeting new people there, refugees or traveling Sisters, had always been pleasant.  But everywhere else…she had been shot with a dart, set upon by wraith-ridden wolves, told that her parents abandoned her, stabbed (shallowly) in the neck, and now was being held at spear point.  Chanel and Hans were nice, she supposed.  But it wasn’t worth it, not really.

From the archway above the steps surrounding the depression in which she and Lilith stood entered a woman with light brown skin and curly hair to her shoulders, dark, with bits of gray.  She wore ivory robes and carried an ornate staff, golden, with an inverted cross at its tip.  A guard, red mist leaking from his skin, met her at the top of the steps and handed her the letter from Lilith.  The woman opened the letter and her eyes rapidly scanned the page, though she remained expressionless at its contents.

“Good morning, Yasmine.  I have another for Jillian.”  Lilith produced a second letter and held it aloft.  Sister Yasmine nodded at the guard, who descended the steps once more, passing back through the ring of spears until he stood before Lilith.  She did not move, nor did she look at him.  “I said it was for Jillian.”

The guard swallowed visibly, then turned to look at Sister Yasmine, who closed her eyes slowly.  When she opened them, she gestured with her head for the guard to return.  

They all stood there, unmoving, while Mira fought the urge to ask Lilith what exactly was going on, and why there were two letters, and what was wrong with giving the other letter to Sister Yasmine anyway, when she heard a rhythmic pounding behind her.  She turned and saw a trio of guards run into view.  They were dressed the same as the others, clean, light tan uniforms too bulky not to contain armor and carrying spears, but they eyed the others in the chamber warily as they slowed.

Lilith turned casually.  “From Dr. Salvius?”

They nodded rapidly, and descended together.  Mira noted that none of them were wraith-ridden, though several other guards in the room were.  Lilith handed the other letter to the lead guard, who took it unopened and left as they had come.

When they had left, Mira jumped at the sudden sound of Sister Yasmine striking the base of her staff against the flagstone.  “By the terms of the treaty, your missive has been received.  I abjure ye, now, begone demon, and stain not the Holy Land with your–”

“Disappointed yet?” Lilith whispered.  “Be well, Mira.  I hope we'll meet again soon.”  And she was gone.

“--darken our…”  Sister Yasmine trailed off and sighed.  “Mira, is it?  Come with me, please.”

Mira made up for the slowness of her reaction by taking the steps two at a time.  By the time she reached the top, Sister Yasmine had turned and begun to make her way towards the maw of the building.  Mira looked up and could just barely see great stone spikes sticking up from the top of the building into the air, ringing it like a crown.  The Savior’s Palace.

Mira caught up to Sister Yasmine just inside, and was struck by a sudden chill.  It was warm outside, more than warm in the August sun, but there was none of that inside.  The air felt crisp like winter, but with the cool of a perfect day in late spring.  

“It feels really nice in here,” she whispered, not entirely on purpose.

Sister Yasmine looked at her and opened her mouth to speak.

“I’ve read all your books, I can’t believe I’m meeting you, I mean, I can believe, I just, I love your writing so, so much, and um…”  Mira realized late what was coming out of her mouth and widened her eyes.  “No, I mean, I’m sorry, that’s, you probably hear that all, from everyone, I didn’t mean to, oh my gosh I’m so sorry, I just–”  Mira swallowed hard and looked straight ahead, afraid to open her mouth again.

When Sister Yasmine replied “What a lovely compliment,” Mira tried really hard not to imagine that Sister Yasmine was on the verge of laughing at her.

They continued in silence through the halls before stopping at a pair of doors that slid sideways into the walls to reveal a box.  It reminded her of Lilith’s Tower in Pandemonium, though without the glass walls.

“Have you ever been on an elevator before?”  Sister Yasmine’s voice was curious, but not unkind.

“Once.”

Yasmine pushed a small circle in the interior wall that began to glow.

“Why aren’t there any guards with us?”  There had been guards, of course, throughout the hallways.  Some patrolling, others guarding posts.  But none of those who had met Mira and Lilith outside had followed Mira and Yasmine through the hallways.

Yasmine looked at her sideways and raised an eyebrow.  “Do you think I can’t handle myself against a thirteen year old?”

“Oh, no!  I didn’t mean, that, I just…”  Mira gestured uselessly at her chest in lieu of shouting about the divine artifact lodged around her heart.

Mira felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as the elevator pulled to a stop and a small chime sounded before the door opened.

“Come on then.  I can’t have you wandering the halls.  Unless you’d prefer I get you some guards?”

Mira shook her head and followed Sister Yasmine down the tall stone corridor.

****

As they approached the door, Mira heard the sound of a piano playing a tune that shifted from something soft and gently descending in a minor key to chords vigorous and loud and back again; she had not heard the song before, but found it oddly compelling, along with the high-pitched voice singing accompaniment.  Mira could not quite make out the words, though she thought she heard something about “thunderbolts and lightning.”  Sister Yasmine began to speak in a flat tone of voice as they entered the room.  “Now comes Mira Silva, Halobearer, child of the Betrayer and Beatrice.”  The music ceased, and a small, pale woman in a sky blue dress and a stiff dark rope necklace turned towards them.  Her hair was dark, with larger curls than Sister Yasmine, and was up in a ponytail so high it was almost vertical, curls perfect enough that Mira couldn't imagine how they got that way except by magic.  Though both the woman's eyes were clearly human, Mira recognized her from her visions: Camila.

Yasmine continued her toneless invocation.  “You stand now in the presence of the Mirrorsouled, the True Voice of Heaven, the Angel’s Bane, Shield of Humanity, Sentinel of the Protectorate, may they watch over us always.  Bow or curtsy, as you prefer.”

Mira had never practiced curtsying or bowing, though she imagined the latter would probably be easier to pull off.  Before she could decide for sure, the Mirrorsouled laughed like silver bells, and spoke in a single voice, soft and beautiful.  “Oh my goodness, please don’t.  Yas, stop trying to intimidate the poor girl.”  The Mirrorsouled walked up to her and grabbed both her hands.  Mira was struck by the fact that the Mirrorsouled was barely taller than Mira.  “Mira Silva.  So grown up.”

They tilted their head towards Yasmine.  “How was Lilith?”

“Fine.  She sent this for you.”  Yasmine handed off the letter.  “She gave another to Jillian.  Insisted on not giving it to me in fact.”

The Mirrorsouled scoffed, though they smiled slightly as they did.  “As if it would be worth our while to keep something from her now.”

Sister Yasmine twisted her lips in a frown.  “She was terribly rude about it.  She wouldn't let me finish my speech either, I spent a great deal of thought on the appropriate wording for her little visits and she has no respect for–”

The Mirrorsouled walked over in the midst of Sister Yasmine’s tirade and interrupted her with a soft kiss on the lips.  “It's OK.  It's just Lilith.  Same as ever.  You did good.”  They took the letter from Sister Yasmine and flopped onto an ornate, and very comfortable looking, couch.

Sister Yasmine’s shoulders dropped some.  “Thank you.  Do you need me here?  I have a meeting I'm supposed to–”

The Mirrorsouled waved her away absently as they opened the letter.  “It's fine.  We'll talk about it later.”

Sister Yasmine turned to Mira.  “In that case, Mira, it is lovely to meet you.  I wish it were under better circumstances.”  Then she nodded her head and left before Mira could figure out a slightly more articulate way to say “same here.”

When Mira turned back, the Mirrorsouled had moved to a desk on the far wall from the piano and was setting a fire in a shallow bowl, stone or clay, with a perforated lid.  The contents blazed briefly, then died down in short order.

“So what should I call you?”

The Mirrorsouled turned back to Mira and smiled.  “What other names have you learned for us, besides Yasmine’s little list?”

Mira swallowed.  “They called you Camila.”

The Mirrorsouled's smile didn't shift as they tilted their head.  “We prefer that, we think.  Camila is for family.  And you're Ava and Beatrice's daughter.  That makes you family.”

“What's wrong with your eye?  And your voice?”

Camila's smile slipped, then came back slowly.  “We wanted to make you feel comfortable.  Most people find it frightening when we show ourselves more fully.  How do you know what we look like and sound like?”

Mira's heart was pounding in her ears.  This was the most incredible day of her life.  She needed to keep it together, the experience was even more intense than meeting Lilith.  The woman in front of her had literally saved the world.  Was continuing to save it, just by existing.  “I saw you.”  The words came out like a saw against wood; she cleared her throat and tried again.  “I saw you.  With the Halo, I saw…”

Camila’s gaze intensified.  “What did you see?”

Mira made sure to breathe.  “Can I sit down?”

Camila clapped once and laughed.  “Of course!  Oh gosh, where are our manners?  Come, come, sit with us!”  They grabbed Mira's hands gently and led her to the couch.  Mira was glad for the support, which helped her keep her knees from buckling.

“I saw a few things.  I saw…when you were all fighting, and the Angels were there and you used the Voice?  And after.  And when I was a baby, and my moms came into the room…and then you came in?”

Camila stared at her in stillness for a moment, then laughed suddenly.  “Oh goodness, we can’t believe that worked!  Well we’re so glad you’re here.  We want to hear all about it, but we hope you don’t mind if you end up having to go over it twice.  We’re sure Jillian will want to talk to you, once she’s feeling up to it.  In the meantime, do you prefer us like this?”

Mira frowned.  “I don’t want you to have to pretend.  Whatever version feels right to you is what you should do.”

The flame grew slowly in Camila’s right eye, like a dying ember springing back to life, until everything in the socket was molten orange and yellow.  When Camila opened her mouth, another voice joined the first, the man’s voice, smooth and deep, harmonizing with the first one.  “Then we won’t pretend.”  And they smiled.  “Would you show us?  The Halo, we mean.”

Mira felt her cheeks getting hot and ducked her head.  “Oh, um, sure, I didn’t know if it was OK to, or safe, you know…”

When she looked back up, Camila was smiling sweetly.  “Don’t worry, Mira.  No tarask can travel between worlds here.  Nothing short of a Halo, or Lilith, can get past our defenses.  And any Angel that tries would regret it.”  They raised a hand to their throat, and Mira saw that what she had taken for a necklace was something quite different.  Its coils had the appearance of thin branches, though the thorns that emerged from it and pierced Camila’s skin bloodlessly were longer than those of any plant Mira had ever seen or heard of.

“Is that…?”  Her words came out a whisper.  Mira reached for it involuntarily, though she could not have said whether she meant to feel the grain of the wood, or test the sharpness of a thorn.  In either event, Camila grabbed her hand gently and stopped her.

“It is.  Don’t touch, though.  The Angel’s Bane can’t be used to command a mortal Halobearer, but given its original nature, we wouldn’t want to find out what happens if you prick yourself on it.”

The Angel’s Bane.  Mira almost choked, though she couldn’t identify the emotion she was feeling.  Whatever she felt when she met Lilith, it felt like that times a thousand.  She doubted she could have kept the Halo’s power in check then, even if she wanted to.  This was an impossible relic.  More legendary, and powerful, even than a Halo.  The reason the Protectorate existed.  The reason the Protectorate was able to exist, why a pocket of humanity had managed to survive without an Angel appearing to wipe them all out.  “It looks so much simpler than I thought it would.”

“Mmmm, you’ve been reading Yasmine then.  She has a flair for the dramatic, but not everything important needs to shine brightly.  And you’ve–”

Mira felt the warmth from where Camila held her hand flare suddenly, and the room was gone. 

****

She was somewhere else, dark and unfamiliar.

“It didn’t work.”  Mira felt the words pass through someone else’s lips, and realized in shock that it was Camila’s voice she was speaking with.  The single voice, not the doubled one.  “You said it would work.  You said it wouldn’t overcome love, that it would break the conditioning.  And it didn’t.  So why should I believe anything you have to say?”

The room was unlit, with a couch and some soft chairs, and faint light coming in through two windows.  It was raining, hard, and the relative darkness was interrupted by a flash of lightning, followed by a rumble shortly thereafter.

Another voice, deep and soothing and familiar, the accent approximating what she knew as British, sounded in her ears, or her mind.  “I was wrong.  For now.  The conditioning won’t hold, not forever, but that’s of little consolation.  She’s found a way to amplify the process, which is more than I would’ve given her credit for had I not seen the results with my own eyes.”  A figure, an apparition of a man, with long dark hair and a close cropped beard, wearing a strange dark armor, knelt next to her.  “Are you really so disappointed, though?  That their love wasn’t enough this time?  After all–”

Mira felt herself, felt Camila, glare at him harshly.  “Yes.  I know what we are, and what we’re not.”  

The man (Adriel was the name Mira heard in her mind) shrugged.  “Then you have to decide what’s next.”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s next?’”  Camila’s voice was bitter in her mouth.  “You know what’s next.  What’s next is Ava decapitating major governments and installing puppets who will follow her on a crusade against the rest.  World war is what’s next.”

Adriel shook his head.  “No, not that.  I mean what’s next for you.  For us.”

Mira rolled her eyes to the ceiling.  “What, this isn’t enough for you?  Maybe you’d rather I tell Jillian so she can remove this thing from my neck and get rid of you for good.”

Adriel’s eyes narrowed.  “That’s one option.  The worst one, I’d say, and not just for me.  You need me now, more than ever.  I’m the only one who can stop what’s coming.  We’re the only ones who can stop what’s coming.”

Mira scoffed in time with the roll of thunder.  “How?”

“You won’t like it.”

“You’re such a charmer.  No wonder you had everyone thinking you were the Second Coming.”

Adriel’s lips twisted.  “A full merger.”

“No.”

Adriel’s voice became tinged with something raw and hopeful and wheedling.  “There are pieces of me missing.  Slipping away.  This could bring more back.  Enough to be useful.  There were projects, things I was attempting before the end.  Experiments.  I can’t remember them, not enough to replicate them.  We need a champion.  Someone who can stand against the Halobearer.”

“Lilith is–”

“Lilith isn’t enough.  They’re too evenly matched, and she could lose.  She did lose, when it came to it, and we were lucky Ava was too distracted by that traitor to make an end of it.  We need another.  I can give us that.”

Mira paused, processing, taking in what he said.  “You’re lying, aren’t you.”

Adriel shrugged, and smirked.  When he spoke again, the desperation was gone from his voice, replaced by something oily and viscous.  Mira found it compelling and repulsive in equal measure.  “Only a bit.  Let me put it differently then: I will never share this willingly without guarantees, and you can’t force me with us separate like this.  If we blend our consciousnesses together, yours should still be dominant, and I won’t be able to hide my knowledge from you.  Believe it or not, there’s worse things lurking on the other side than Ava Silva.  And I have some thoughts on how to deal with Reya’s trump cards as well.”

Mira gnawed her thumb, then caught herself, but didn’t stop.  A bad habit, but not hers.  “This is dangerous.”

Adriel nodded.  “There are risks for you, of course, but I–”

Mira looked at him sharply.  “For you.”  That got him to shut up.  “You could end up completely subordinate.  A facet of my personality.  You wouldn’t even really exist anymore.”

For the first time since he had appeared, he wasn’t smiling even a little.  “It’s possible, yes.”

“Then why?”

He cocked his head.  “Because my people need me.  Because sometimes, someone needs to be willing to sacrifice everything to keep everyone else safe.”

Mira felt the body she was in settle, harden.  She took Camila’s thumb from her mouth.  “How do we start?”

****

Mira blinked against the sudden brightness as she returned to Camila’s room in the Protectorate.  Camila stared at her intensely.  “What did you see?”

“I saw…I think I saw when you chose.  When you decided to become the Mirrorsouled.”  

Camila stared at Mira blankly for a moment, then laughed.  The effect of the two voices in unison sent tingles up Mira's spine.  “You've known us for ten minutes, and you already know so much about us.”  They leaned their right arm against the back of the couch and rested their head on their hand.  “So?  What do you think?  You know, your moms never forgave me for that.  Everything we had been through together, everything we had been to each other…”  They made a popping sound with their mouth.  “Poof.  Gone, like it was nothing.”

“Why, though?  You were just trying to protect everyone.”

Camila shrugged.  “Well, you see…”

They closed their eyes very deliberately.  When they opened them, both eyes were burning, and only the man's voice emerged from their mouth.  “Your mothers were ignorant.  I did what was necessary to defeat Reya, nothing more.  You, a child amongst children, know so much more than they did about Reya and her nature.  But even you will have passed these few heartbeats if your existence without realizing that your kind are characterized by weakness, and stupidity, and fear.  I required worship in order to ambush Reya, and quickly in order to take her unawares.  The thuggery of your species, your willingness to blindly follow power, I turned to my advantage.  What do you think of me?  That I would have lingered to rule over this cesspool if I defeated her?  I weighed the deaths of a few against the liberation of trillions of souls and I would do it all again.  And they despise me for making the sacrifice they could not.  For failing to persuade them of my wisdom, as though they were fit to pass judgment upon…”

The eyes of the Mirrorsouled darkened, and the woman's voice hummed.  “In other words, Adriel is an asshole.”  Mira almost laughed, and instead choked on her spit at the curse, and at the strangeness of hearing a legend insult themselves.

Camila tilted their head and smiled, then their right eye ignited and they spoke with both their voices.  “He gets sulky when he loses an argument.  But he hurt Ava.  And Ava hurt herself trying to beat him, so badly that she had to go to Reya’s realm.  And when she came back…”  Camila’s smile turned sad.  “They blame Adriel for that.  And they can't forgive us for it.”

Mira frowned.  “So when you said it would make my parents mad…”

“They don't trust us.  We don't think they ever will again.”

“But they're wrong, aren't they?  They can trust you.”

Camila chuckled.  “Oh Mira.  Can we give you some advice?” 

Mira nodded.

“There will be lots of people who want you on their side.  For who you are, for what you can do, for what you represent, for all three.  And so a lot of people, even people you like and trust, may say things to get you to do what they want.  When you're trying to figure out who you can trust?  Look at what people do, to how they treat you and the people around them, not what they say.”

Mira frowned and started to think about that, and the differences between what some of the people in her life had said to her, compared to how they treated her.

“Not now, silly!  Later.  For now, let's get you a shower, and some nicer clothes, and then, if you're up to it…”  Camila smiled like she had a secret.  “...how about a tour of the greatest city in the world?”

****

Mira had never been in a carriage before.  “Aren't you worried about one of Reya's people trying to hurt you or kidnap you or something?”  The last two times Mira had been alone in a town or city, someone had tried to kidnap her.  She assumed it was more likely for people who were more famous or important. 

Camila smiled, unbothered.  They might have been lounging in the sun.  “Not particularly.  Reya found out a long time ago how dangerous it is to expose her followers to the Protectorate, where they can see how much of her stories about us are lies.  Even so, we have security measures, just in case.”

They gestured outside the carriage to a guard trailed by wisps of crimson.  

“But what if–”

“Look there!”  Camila pointed out the window.  “That's the old royal palace.  Beautiful, isn't it?”

The palace was enormous, pale stone columns framing windows set in stone almost the color of gold and stretching the width of an enormous plaza before it. In the the center of the facade, above the top floor, emerged a smaller edifice on which Mira could just barely make out a clock face.  The edifice was crowned with an enormous inverted metal cross, a shade darker than bronze.  Its twin occupied the center of the plaza, though that was not the second or third such cross Mira had seen so far on their ride.

“People used to come from all over the world to see it.  Now, only the citizens of the Protectorate have the chance.”  Camila sighed.

“What are the crosses for?”

Camila’s lips turned up slightly.  “Lots of things.  Probably the simplest way we can explain them is that they're for changing the flow of energy.  The Halos, Reya, Angels, all of them rely on energy that can be channeled, or amplified, or drained away.  The crosses are designed and linked together in a way that pulls away that energy from most sources, and amplifies ours.”  Camila sat back, and Mira felt the challenge in their eyes.

“So…I can’t use the Halo here unless you let me?”

“Very good.  More than that, though.  We can dampen the Halo’s energy signature without draining it, so that you can use the Halo without tarasks being able to track you.  We can prevent Reya from manifesting her power here directly.  Detect divine energy, when it manifests.”  Their smile carried a promise of pain inflicted, or the memory of it.  “And, of course, they’ve been designed to amplify and transmit our Voice anywhere in the Protectorate.”

Mira stared out the window in awe at part of the reason humanity still existed.  “That’s why the Angels can’t come here?  Why they’ve never attacked the Protectorate?”  

Camila shrugged.  “When Sammael and Verchiel didn’t return, they knew we had found something new.  Something dangerous.  We almost killed Reya once.  She’s been cautious since then.  Eventually it made more sense to advertise the fact, to reap worship from it, than to try to keep it a secret.”

Mira had more thoughts about that, and questions, but the last thing she wanted was to sound like a fool in front of The Mirrorsouled.  She decided to think on them some more.

****

Mira had never worn a dress like this in her life.  A “gown.”  Hadn’t worn dresses much at all since she was … five?  Six?  The fabric, dark blue, was maybe the softest she’s ever felt in her life, though, and when she saw herself in the mirror, she thought she looked like a princess in a book of old fairy tales.  She had always pictured herself as the one doing the rescuing in stories like that.  She tried to focus on the softness of the thing, and not how weird it felt to have her legs uncovered under all the fabric.

After the people who had helped her with putting on the gown left, a guard, wraith-ridden, led her through the hallways.  Mira tried to focus on her breathing; just because Camila had told her that she could use the Halo without worrying about tarasks didn’t mean Mira wanted to show it off to some random guard and anyone who might be walking the hallways at dinner time.  The gown was high necked in the front, so the Halo’s mark on her chest wouldn’t show, but that wouldn’t do much good if she started glowing.  

Mira was proud of herself for how well she was able to keep the Halo under control.  Then sad when she thought of who else might have been proud of her.  Camila hadn’t had any idea when Mira’s parents might arrive (if they were able), but they promised that the Protectorate’s defenses would be calibrated to let Ava through without issue whenever she wished.  If she wished.

The guard led Mira to what, to Mira’s eyes, was a grand dining hall.  It was not nearly so big as the dining hall at the Cradle, but made up for it with high vaulted ceilings, the intricate patterns carved into the interior walls, and the brilliance of the electric lights hanging from the ceiling.  A long table that seated two dozen was set for four, two place settings on one side at the far right end of the table, one opposite, and a place setting at that head of the table, though for some reason there was no chair in that spot.  The table was framed on the side opposite the door by a wide balcony that looked out onto the late summer greenery surrounding the building, and beyond that to the city, orange in the late afternoon.  Mira judged it to be at least another two hours until sunset, though the days were starting to shorten more noticeably as autumn approached.

Camila and Sister Yasmine were seated side by side facing the door when Mira entered.  Yasmine was in the same ivory robes she had worn when Mira first saw her that morning, but Camila had changed into something closer to what Mira was wearing, though their gown was golden and cut to expose her neck and shoulders, and the thorned coils of the Angel’s Bane along with them.  Both stood, and Camila walked around the table to greet her in her doubled voice.  “Mira!  Oh goodness, look at you!  We love this color on you.  Did you enjoy your bath?  Were you able to get some rest?  We know it must have been such an exhausting day.”  

Mira paused with her jaw open, unsure which part to answer first.

“Cam.”  Sister Yasmine’s smile was soft.  “You’re overwhelming the poor girl, especially since you’re the one who exhausted her.”

Camila rolled their eyes.  “So dramatic.  Come.”  They gestured rapidly with one hand.  “Sit sit sit.”

After Mira did, the door behind her opened quietly.  A light-skinned woman with straight dark hair held back in a ponytail entered with a rolling cart, bringing them a cold tomato soup with chopped vegetables, a tray of fruit to share chilled water for Mira and Sister Yasmine, and wine for Camila.  

Mira eyed the unoccupied place setting to her right.  “Are we waiting for someone else, or…?”

Camila’s lips twitched.  “She’ll be along shortly.”

“In the meantime,” chimed in Sister Yasmine, “why don’t you tell us more about how you came to join us?  As you saw, the Demon Queen was less than forthcoming.”

Mira frowned.  “She didn’t explain in the note?”

Sister Yasmine and Camila shared a look, though Mira hadn’t the faintest idea what might have passed between them.  “Very, very little, other than who you are and that you have a Halo.”  Yasmine looked back at Mira.  “So please.  Enlighten us.  Or start with your upbringing, if you prefer.”

“Oh, yes!  How is Mary?!”

The door behind Mira opened again, more suddenly this time, and Mira stood instinctively and turned.  The woman who entered was seated in a wheelchair, though not like any Mira had ever seen or heard of.  It was white with black wheels too small to reach easily, and with neither handrims for the user nor push handles for someone to aid them.   The woman was dressed in a white robe, with a matching scarf decorated with gold flowing patterns wrapped around her head.  There was something underneath it, Mira was fairly sure, from the even band of fabric that seemed pushed out from within along the forehead.  Her skin looked too tight, and too pale, and she leaned back against the chair as it rolled forward with no hand to push it.  There was a metal brace wrapped around her right arm and hand that reminded Mira of a skeleton.

Camila smiled under their burning eye and popped a grape into their mouth as the woman’s chair carried her to the open spot at the head of the table.  “Good evening Jillian.  This is Mira, Ava and Beatrice’s daughter.”

Mira began to hear a great thudding in her ears at the word “Jillian.”  Jillian Salvius.  The Savior of Humanity.  The Founder of the Salvian Protectorate and its namesake, the woman whose technological innovations, the Angel's Bane not least among them, were the last great bastion protecting humanity from utter annihilation and Mira thought she was maybe going to throw up.

“Intimidation, then?  I’m surprised.  I would have thought you had a defter touch than this.”  Dr. Salvius’ voice was thin, like she was on the verge of a coughing fit, or had just recovered from one.

Camila batted their eyelashes and smiled.  “Why Jillian, whatever do you mean?”

They stared at each other for a long moment before Dr. Salvius turned and looked at Mira.  Her eyes had a sharpness, like they were peeling back layers.  “Forgive me.  Where are my manners.  How have you been finding things here?”

Mira told herself in her head not to do anything embarrassing, then told herself again, then became worried she had already failed by not answering fast enough.  “I can't believe…”  Too much, she did not want to come on too strong.  “I've read…”  That was weird, it was weird to tell someone you've read about them, wasn't it?  “You're so…”  Having just met the woman, telling her she was amazing would have been right back where she started, too much, way too much.  “Big.”  She felt her face start to warm, that was a silly thing to say, the sort of thing someone would say if they were from the middle of nowhere and didn't know anything about the world and –

“You think I'm big?”  Salvius said the words almost without inflection.  The corner of her mouth twitched.

Mira's face was burning, but maybe it was just in her head, maybe they couldn't see it.  She resolved to pretend like she wasn't more embarrassed than she had ever been in her life.  “No, um, I just, it’s an–”  Nobody actually said “it’s an honor to meet you,” did they?  Maybe everybody said it, maybe it was a big cliche and that would have been just as embarrassing.  “This is the best dinner I’ve ever had.”  

Salvius did smile at that, the skin of her cheeks stretched too tight over her cheekbones and deepening and lengthening the wrinkles that sprouted around her lips.  Dr. Salvius chuckled too, so Mira was confident that the heat in her face was just in her head.  “Well.  I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.  I only wish we had met under…”  When Dr. Salvius stopped talking, her gaze hardened enough to snap branches over.  Maybe bones.  And Mira saw for a moment in eyes the color of steel a glimpse of a mind and will that had defied the Tyrant herself.  “...well.  I hope the food is to your liking, in any event.”

****

The dinner was delicious, although some of the foods felt almost heavy in a way that Mira wasn’t used to.  She tried not to marvel at the way Dr. Salvius ate, the brace around her arm and hand lifting and moving and all of the devices, brace and chair alike, controlled directly by Dr. Salvius’ mind.  Mira’s adrenaline settled as the meal went on, and she tried very hard not to think too hard about who she was sharing dinner with, or what Nadia would say when Mira told her.

Then there were the odd bits, strange in a way that Mira couldn’t quite place.  Something about how every time Camila spoke, Dr. Salvius stared at them.  How Camila did the same when Dr. Salvius spoke, even as they kept a smile on their face.  How, every now again, when Mira wasn’t looking, she got the feeling that Dr. Salvius was staring at her instead, especially when Sister Yasmine asked about her travels, especially about her time with Beatrice.

“Mira.”  In Dr. Salvius’ mouth, it wasn’t a question.  “I hope you will forgive me for not joining you for dessert.  I haven’t much of a sweet tooth these days.  Will you spend some more time with me tomorrow?  I would very much like to get to know you better during your time with us.”

“Uh, yes?  I would be honored.”  Mira shut her eyes in embarrassment before she remembered that no one else at the table had heard her thoughts on the subject.  Unless one of them could read minds.

Dr. Salvius smiled at Mira like maybe she could, but said only “I’ll look forward to it.  Have a good night.”

Mira waited until Dr. Salvius’s chair had carried her from the room before she asked a question that had been itching at her mind all night.

“Miss…um…Camila?”  

“Yes, dear?”

“Why did Dr. Salvius look like that?  With the …”  Mira wasn’t sure how to put into words the totality of the impression Salvius gave, but Camila understood well enough.  

Camila’s expression shifted into something pitying, softened by a gentle smile.

“Oh, yes.  It’s because she’s dying.”

Chapter Text

I vomited after you told me.  To think that you allowed him to be present.  When we…there were things I told you in confidence.  I shared parts of myself with you that I had not shared with anyone else and because you lied, I shared them with him too.  I have never been more vulnerable in my life and I have never felt so betrayed.  You had him inside you the whole time.  THE WHOLE TIME.  And you expect me to trust you?  To call you ally?  Where have you been as we searched for Ava?  Where were you when we slew Nuriel and took his Halo?  Where were you when the tarask came for Madeleine in her sleep?  You have built your walls so high and mighty for you to cower behind.  So cower there.  And rot.

-excerpt from correspondence to the Mirrorsouled, unsigned, received 15.12.4 BF

“Would you be alright with us running some tests, Mira?”

“What sort of tests, Dr. Salvius?”

Dr. Salvius smiled thinly.  “Please, Mira, I told you, call me Jillian.”

They were eating “brunch,” a novel concept for Mira, on a balcony overlooking the park just outside one side of the palace.  Mira had no doubt that she would say “yes,” she couldn’t imagine Jillian Salvius would ever offer a test Mira would say no to, but what good was having a meal with maybe the most brilliant scientist who had ever lived if you didn’t bother to ask her any questions?

Jillian took a sip of orange juice with the aid of the exoskeleton on her right arm.  “You mentioned during dinner some unusual experiences, even before obtaining Uriel’s Halo.  Seeing wraiths?  Unheard of, outside of a Halobearer, or Lilith.  I’d like to take a blood sample, possibly run some vision tests outside the normal human spectrum.  Some tests of energy output, and reactivity, if you’re willing.  I won’t subject you to anything without your consent.”

Mira was nodding before Dr. Salvius…before Jillian could finish.  “Absolutely.”

Jillian smiled, and Mira watched again as the skin around her lips pulled taut.  “Lovely.”

“Is it OK if I ask?”  Mira was proud that her voice didn’t shake.

Jillian’s face faded to what seemed to be neutral for her, though what on anyone else would have been something piercing and intense.  “Camila told you the what, but not the how, I take it?”

“She said you were dying.”

Jillian nodded.  “We’re all dying, with a few notable exceptions, but yes, I do not have much more time.  Cancer, my body’s cells running out of control and eating me alive.  The treatments are unpleasant, but they keep me alive.  For now.”

“Do…do you know how long you…?”

“A few months, perhaps longer.  I would be pleasantly shocked to see another summer.”

Mira felt something oily and rotten in the pit of her stomach.  “But you…what happens to everyone then?”

Jillian’s shrug was the barest shift of her shoulders.  “Our efforts, Yasmine’s especially, have focused on elevating my legend as well as Camila’s.  She’ll arrange for a shift in teachings, elevate Camila’s role as my successor.  Possibly my death will have been the result of some villainous attempt on Camila’s life, or on the Protectorate as a whole.  I’ll have died a hero, and our system will capture that worship all the same.  Camila will assume full leadership of the Protectorate.  You can ask them how they will proceed in my absence if you wish.  They might even tell you.”

Mira bit her bottom lip.  “What if I gave you the Halo?”

Jillian’s eyes widened, before she barked a laugh that devolved quickly into a wheeze.  It took her a few moments to catch her breath.  “Well then.  Aren’t you a noble young lady.  I don’t suppose you have any idea how painful it is to remove a Halo from a living bearer?  No, you wouldn’t.  But that’s alright.  Even if I were willing to hurt you that much to preserve my own life, the effort might well prove useless.  Halos have been known to reject bearers who demonstrate themselves unworthy, though I doubt even Reya knows what ‘worthy’ means in that context.  But I suspect causing enormous harm and pain to a young girl in order to preserve my own life would be the sort of act that would make it difficult to keep a Halo.  No.  My time is coming.  I have lived a full life, if not so long as some.  I know what my future holds, and I think I will meet that future best knowing that your Halo is right where it belongs.  With you.”  

Mira frowned and was about to press further when she heard the soft rhythm of sandaled feet behind her.

“Ladies!”  Camila called to them in their overlapping voices as they walked up to the table.   Their hair was up again, though today they wore a pink dress just shy of red.  “Enjoying the meal, we hope?  Did Jillian tell you what we’re thinking for this morning?”

“Yes, Camila, I was just getting to that.  Mira, since you’re up for it, my preference would be to get started with the testing this morning, after we finish.  Is that acceptable to you?”

****

Mira had never seen anything like Jillian’s lab.  Apparently it was one of many, each tailored to various types of inquiry.  This one was for studying the human body.  Jillian in her mind-controlled chair led Mira past rooms filled with strange wonders, the strangest an enormous smooth pale box with a hole in the side large enough for a grown person to crawl inside and lie down, to a room filled with glass cabinets, electric lights, three pallets like terribly uncomfortable looking beds elevated a little over a meter off the floor, each a few meters from the others, and all manner of instruments of black rubber and steel that Mira had never seen before.  Everything smelled like it had been cleaned with something terribly poisonous and then had oranges rubbed all over it.  Whatever it was seemed effective; Mira had yet to see a speck of dirt or dust anywhere in the palace, and every piece of equipment gleamed.  

Mira and Jillian were accompanied by Camila, Yasmine, and a man and a woman whom Jillian called her “lab assistants.”  Neither was wraith-ridden.  Both wore identical soft smiles.  

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mira, would you please hop up on the exam table?”

Mira climbed up with a shrug.

Jillian conducted a few tests with some more familiar tools, ones that they had in the Cradle as well for routine medical evaluations.  A tool for measuring blood pressure.  Another for listening to the patient’s heartbeat and breathing.  Another for looking inside the mouth and ears and nose, though Jillian’s had a tiny electric light on it, unlike the Cradle’s.

“Next we’re going to draw blood.  Or one of my assistants will.  Hold your left arm out to the side please, and look to your right.”  

Camila stepped into Mira’s field of view and held Mira’s right hand in their left.  “This is going to sting just a little.”

Jillian tsked.  “Pinch.  You’ll feel a pinch, then you’ll be fine.”  She nodded to one of the lab assistants, who had moved behind Mira with various strange objects, pale and translucent in parts, metallic in others, on a metal tray.

When Mira felt the needle pierce her skin, she thought that neither of them had been right.  It definitely wasn’t a sting, she had been stung twice when she was little by a hornet and that hurt much worse.  Pinch wasn’t right either, it hurt more than that, and caused a faint soreness to blossom in the crook of her arm.  Whatever the right word would have been, Mira was not too bothered by the pain.  It wasn’t anything close to having her guts ripped out by an Angel, or even someone getting a good shot in during training at the Cradle.

The pain didn’t bother Mira.  What bothered her were the sounds.

At first, she thought she was imagining it.  Or maybe it was one of the devices in the lab.  The vents in Mira’s room certainly made strange sounds as they pushed cold air in, perhaps it was something like that.  But then it started to sound almost like choking.  Or maybe someone gasping for air, but softly.  Then that was overlaid with footsteps moving quickly, a cabinet door opening suddenly with a slam.  

Mira tried to turn her head to look, but Camila caught her face with their right hand.  “Eyes on us, Mira.  Almost done.”  Their expression looked strange, eyes wide, almost smiling but not quite.  It reminded Mira of the way the children in Espoir had looked at Beatrice, and not a few of the grown-ups.  Mira could have sworn she heard something dripping onto the floor.

More footsteps, then there was a shift in the hand on Mira’s arm, and a brief sharp pain as the needle moved under her skin, then a soft pressure on top of it before Mira felt it come out.  “Hold this here for a moment, please.”  It was a woman’s voice, though Mira was fairly sure the man had been the one who had started the process of drawing her blood.  Mira turned her head as she pressed down on the gauze and saw the man walking away quickly.  It looked like he had his arms folded in front of him.

“Do I need to keep this here for long, or…?”

Jillian shook her head, impassive, other than the finger of her left hand tapping rapidly against the armrest of her chair, almost a tremor.  “It’s fine, just to catch any blood that might have gotten loose before you healed.”

Mira felt the skin closing already, the pain dissipating.  When she lifted up the gauze, there was only a dot of red on it, almost too small to see.  “What will you do with it?”

“Run tests.  DNA sequencing, for starters.  Then some tests for reactivity with divine energy.”  Jillian tilted her head.  “You haven’t been vaccinated, have you.”

“Um…no?  What does that mean?”

“It means you’re fortunate to have lived as long as you have.  Though transmissibility of many diseases is less these days, with fewer carriers.  At any rate, the Halo is largely ineffective against chemical interference in biological processes, and I cannot guarantee it will keep you from becoming ill with a serious disease, especially in a high-density population center like this.  A vaccine is a type of medicine that keeps you from getting sick.  I would recommend you receive several at once, covering a number of diseases.  Is that acceptable to you?”

“Sure.  I hate being sick.”

“Good.”  The remaining lab assistant placed a strange device on the table.  It looked like a small metal arm attached to a flat metal plate, with thin cables and nested cylinders along its side.  Something about it gave Mira the impression that it was unfinished, though she didn’t know nearly enough about what she was looking at to put her finger on why.  There was something oddly ugly about it.  The assistant put a syringe in a clamp at the end of the arm and positioned a sort of metal finger at the end with the plunger.

“What’s this for?  Why doesn’t she just hold the needle herself?”

Jillian blinked at her.  “It’s for remote administration of injections.  Just a prototype, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Uh…no?”  This was somehow not what Mira imagined.

“Good.”  Jillian nodded to the lab assistant, who pulled a black rectangle from a drawer roughly the size of two hands stretched out next to each other and held it facing her as she tapped on the flat of it, a part Mira couldn’t see.  The woman moved, her footsteps echoing gently from behind Mira.  

Camila rubbed Mira’s arm gently.  “Probably this will feel about the same, but there might be some soreness afterwards.  Are you ready?”

Mira was not entirely sure.  “Yep.”  

Camila smiled at her.  “OK.  I’ll count down.  3…2–”

A quick pain burst into Mira’s shoulder.  Somewhere behind her she heard a tight rush of air, like a strained wheeze.  Then it was over.  “All done!”  Camila rubbed Mira’s other arm.  “You did great.  Very brave.”  They looked at Jillian, and Jillian looked back, and Mira couldn’t say what had passed between them.  She did not see either of the lab assistants again when they left.

****

The training area was filled with equipment that was unfamiliar to Mira, though some of it was more or less obvious in function.  Weights of various kinds, to be pulled in various ways.  She had not expected the treadmill, a small sort of miracle from the old world, though a baffling one.  Why would someone need a machine to run without going anywhere?  Didn't that defeat the point?

She certainly found it boring when Jillian had a new pair of assistants strap strange sticky circles with wires on them all over her body and then had her run on one.  Jillian and Camila seemed to be entertained, at least.

“Fascinating,” Camila murmured as they stared at a screen facing away from Mira.  “Completely unrelated to neurological architecture.  We cannot tell you how curious we are about you, Mira.  Have you manifested any unique powers so far?”

Mira shrugged as she ran.  They kept increasing the speed, but she hadn't had any issue keeping pace yet.  “Not that I know of.  My…Ava tried to teach me to fly, but I couldn't do it.  What does that mean, unrelated to…whatever you said.”

Camila’s lips turned up at the corners. “We always assumed that the positioning of the Halo had something to do with the ability of Halobearers to access its power.  It was a sensible theory, and the OCS had hundreds of years of evidence that it would work that way, that a literal angel had chosen for it to be inserted that way, so I doubt they ever felt the need to experiment.”

“Didn’t Adriel…you…know what would happen?”

Camila shrugged.  “We were being chased by tarasks at the time.  Human morphology is less even in the front, all we wanted was a relatively uniform mound of organic material to disrupt the tarasks’ tracking.  And a demonstration of miraculous power to cow the faithful, of course.  It had occurred to us that a human implanted with a Halo might experience side effects beyond healing, but we never expected anything as dramatic as what Areala and her successors became.”  

The treadmill was followed by tests of strength and phasing, as well as Mira’s ability to manifest a burst of the Halo’s energy on command.  That last was still a work in progress.  They then moved on to a series of tests of powers recorded to have been exhibited by only one or a handful of prior Warrior Nuns.  Mira found herself more disappointed after every one.  In addition to not being able to fly, she couldn’t create force fields, or illusions, or move small objects with her mind, or speak to people in their minds, or any of the other powers they tested.

After the tenth failed attempt, Jillian decided they’d had enough.  “Perhaps we should go about this a different way, Mira.  What powers have you manifested thus far?  List all of them, maybe we’ve missed something you thought was obvious.”

“Um…I can heal.  Like you saw, I’m really, really fast.  And strong.  I can phase.  I guess I can see wraiths, but I could do that before.  Sometimes when I touch people I can see into the past?”

Jillian raised her eyebrows.  “Tell me more about that one.  How many times, with whom, et cetera.”

“Maybe four times?  Only two people though, my mo…um, Ava, and with Camila.”

Jillian turned to Camila and cocked her head.  “Thoughts?  You have more experience with this than I do.”

Camila shrugged.  “We know that Ava managed to see into our past and experience it as Areala.  We certainly didn't expect that, but we haven't had contact with any other Halobearers to test the theory until now.  Mira, when you saw our past, who were you?”

“I was you.  Um, Camila you.  Not Adriel.”

“And with Ava?”

“I was her the first time, until…I don't know.  The woman she called Mother said something about stopping Reya and all of a sudden I was watching her from the outside.  Then I was her when you used the Voice for the first time.  Then I was…I was me when they…when I was a baby.”  She hadn't thought about that in long enough that the tightness in her chest took her by surprise.

Jillian hummed.  “Interesting.  Always inhabiting a Halobearer, but not necessarily the one triggering the vision.  Or one who necessarily bore the Halo at the time of the vision.  Was it always triggered by touch, or were any of your experiences activated remotely?”

Mira shook her head.  “Just touch.”

Jillian pursed her lips, then nodded towards Camila.  “See if you can do it on purpose.  And Camila, perhaps you could try directing her to a specific memory.”

Camila cocked an eyebrow.  “We have one in mind.”  They held out their hand.  “Whenever you’re ready, Mira.”

Mira’s mouth went dry, and she swallowed the various objections that sprung to mind.  She had absolutely no idea how to do this.  She reached out to the Halo, opening herself up to its energy in a way that had become second-nature to her.  She had a feel for most of the things she knew how to do with it.  How to infuse her muscles with energy in the right way for a burst of speed, or how to shift herself sideways, sort of, to phase.  She even knew the feeling of a Halo blast, even though she couldn’t do it reliably, a sort of opening of herself, though that wasn’t quite it, and letting the Halo’s energy out through a gap to focus the energy.  

But what was it even supposed to feel like to look into the past?  To be someone else in another time?  It had always happened by accident, and before she even really knew what was happening.  Maybe it had to do with trying to imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes?  She reached out to take Camila’s hand as she tried to figure out how to go about activating this power on purpose.

Their hands touched.

****

“Talk to me.”

Mira looked up at Mary.  Mary was standing, framed by flowers, and all about them was green.  “What do you want me to say? “  Her voice was singular, Camila's, and already it felt wrong in her throat.  She gripped the cold stone of the bench beneath her.

Mary did not move, or look away.  “You can start by telling me what the hell that is on your neck.”

Mira shrugged and turned her head.  The most beautiful orchids were blooming not twenty meters away, purple and brilliant and incapable of judgment.  “We needed a weapon.  In case that happened.  In case she sent more than just Ava.”

“Oh, we'll get to that.  The part where you decided you get to make all the decisions by yourself, and to hell with the rest of us.  But first, you're gonna answer my question.  What.  Is.  That.”

Mira absently ran her fingers along the vine-like cords around her neck.  Felt the thorns extend in response to the remnants of Adriel's power.  The ones digging into her shoulders, the flesh around her collarbones, exerted a tingling pressure, but there was no pain.

“A pair of handcuffs for Angels and Ava wasn't doing us any good.  Especially not one linked to Reya.  So we changed it.  Found a way to make it what we needed.”

While she was talking, Yasmine walked in through an archway on the other side of the garden.  She sat at the edge of a small fountain, expressionless.  Yasmine’s hand tapped rapidly against her knee.

Mary looked over at Yasmine, then back.  “Who's ‘we?’”

“Me.  Jillian.  And…”  Mira trailed off.  Camila knew what was coming.

“Show me.  You’re feeling righteous?  Big hero energy?  Then you own it.  Show me.”

Mira felt something in her loosen.  It felt almost like the Halo’s energy, but it wasn’t coming from her chest.  It was everywhere.  In her blood, in her lungs, in the tensing of calf muscles and the wriggle of toes.  And, of course, her eye.  “Is this what you wanted to see?”  Her second voice thrummed in her chest.

Mary just stared for the space of a few breaths.  “He killed Shannon.” 

Mira huffed.  “So did Vincent.  Lilith killed Michael, but Jillian’s still here.  Shannon died because she was fighting in a war she didn’t understand.  We all were.  And now we have a chance to fight back.”

“He kept me locked up for months.  Alone.  Let you all think I was dead.  He–”

“And how do you think we knew where to find you?”

Mary’s eyes widened for a moment before her expression hardened.  “You’ve got all the answers, huh?  Except for the part where, if this was such a good idea, why you never told the rest of us.  Or asked what we thought.”  Mary looked away for a moment.  “How long?”

“Not quite a year.”

Mary shook her head.  “Jesus.  No wonder she’s so pissed at you.  You know she–”

“Ava’s escaped.”

Mary turned towards Yasmine.  “What?!”

“That’s why I came.  To tell you two.”

Mary growled.  “How?”

Mira looked up.  “You know how.”

Mary sighed.  “Damn it.”

When Mary left, Yasmine approached slowly and sat beside Mira.  She was wearing dark blue robes and a wimple over her hair, like some of the Sisters did at the Cradle.  She pulled it off after a few heartbeats and cast it roughly to the side.  Camila’s eyes remained fixed upon the flagstones at her feet.

“She doesn’t deserve you.”

Mira felt Camila’s throat close.  “There’s nothing to deserve.  I’m not … I just did what…”

“Do you know what makes me different from the rest of you?”

Mira shook Camila’s head.

“I know there are more things I can do to help when I’m alive.”  Yasmine wiped absently at one of her eyes.  “You know, I think you would have made a magnificent Warrior Nun.  You’re brilliant, you always put others first, and none of that matters now because it was all a lie.  So you need to live, alright?  No more sacrificing yourself for everyone else.  OK?”

Mira nodded.  They say in silence for a while as the morning breeze made the flowers dance. 

“Thank you, by the way.  For saving my life.  And the rest of our sisters.  And the world, probably.”

Mira had no memory of it, but somehow knew that no one else had said those words to Camila yet.  “It was–”

“Don’t you dare say it was nothing.”

Mira swallowed.  “You’re welcome.”

When Mira looked up, Yasmine was studying Camila’s face.  Analyzing.

“What does it feel like?  Subjectively.”

“It feels like we’re blending.  We don’t … it’s getting harder to think in terms of ‘I.’  We talk to each other sometimes, our internal monologues are separate but … we don’t think that will last.”

“All of us change.  But I still recognize who I see when I look at you.”

****

When she came back to herself, Mira found Camila and Dr. Salvius staring at her intently.

“So,” began Camila.  “Do you know what we ate for breakfast the day you arrived?”

Jillian looked at her askance.  “That’s what you tried to show her?”

Camila shrugged.  “If we can control it, we should be able to show her anything, not just important moments.” 

Jilllian hummed and turned back to Mira.  “So?”

“I saw something, but not … not that.  You were in a garden with the Holy Mother and Sister Yasmine came and told you that Ava escaped.”

Camila and Jillian looked at each other.

“Interesting.”

****

“You don’t have any bananas?”  The sun had set, and Mira was eating dinner with Camila.  She was starting to get used to the late dinners; they had made an exception when she first arrived, but apparently this (and napping in the afternoon) was more traditional in the Protectorate, at least in the summer months.

“No.  We tried cultivating them, but we couldn’t get the conditions quite right.  Well.  Jillian couldn’t.”

“But … don’t you have … I thought the Ark was…”

Camila smiled with a loose sort of sadness that slipped away easily.  “Our dear Mira.  We’re afraid the Ark is too precious a resource to spend on bananas.  Or rather, the energy that powers it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Ark wasn’t designed to be able to operate routinely.  A Halo can open a gate between realms independently; they’re special.  Their own power supply, even.  The Ark is just the best we could do with this world’s technology.  No independent power supply, much less a self-replenishing one.  Highly inefficient, not even a Halo can provide it with enough power to function.  When we first used it, we needed billions of worshipers.  There aren’t even enough humans alive to power it now, not all at once.  We store what energy we can, preserve it for future use.  But we need to be strategic.  Lilith can move where she pleases; we mostly have to do the best we can with what we have here.”

“So what do you use it for?”

Camila chuckled, but barely smiled.  “Well.  We had something in mind, but it won't work anymore.  In the past, we've used it mostly for targeted strikes.  Get our people in and out for high-value raids or sabotage, infiltration.”

“Can Reya not do the same?  Because of the crosses?”

“Reya can’t do the same because she doesn’t have an Ark.  She wouldn’t build one if she could.  Part of how Reya maintains her power is by controlling access, maintaining her mystique, pretending she is beyond the rest of us.  It’s why she never simply sent an army after us, after Adriel.  It’s why only her chosen few, what we call Angels here on Earth, receive the power to cross between realms.”

“The Halos.”

“Yes.  A Halo can open a gate, and provide a beacon for tarasks to cross over temporarily.  There are other methods, but none as effective.  A wraith here or there.  Without physical form, it is easier to create the conditions for a crossing, though the energy required to do so is still substantial.”

Mira frowned.  “I could help.  If I could … if I can learn to open a gate, like my mom … I could help.  You could do more.”

Camila smiled.  “We wouldn’t want to force you into anything, Mira.  And even what you’re describing, it would make you a target.  Would you do that?  Would you put yourself at risk, to keep people safe?”

Mira began nodding before Camila finished speaking.

“Good.”

****

“This is so boring.  Why can’t you just teach me the song?”  It had been weeks now, and Camila had been teaching Mira how to play the piano, when they weren’t teaching her about controlling the Halo.  They nonetheless insisted on having her play the most boring, repetitive exercises over and over and over again, every lesson, instead of teaching her something new.

Camila’s doubled hum was mostly amusement, or at least Mira hoped it was.  “You really need to learn the fundamentals.  Scales first, every time.  We have to work on your technique.”

“Then I can learn that song you were playing?  Mad World?”

“Then you can learn ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little–’”

Camila stopped at the sound of shouting outside the door to their room.  Two loud thuds.  More shouting.  Two more loud thuds punctuated by brief screams.  Mira was so focused on the door, she almost didn’t notice Ava walking through the wall behind Camila.  Mira thought it looked odd to see Ava carrying a sword that didn’t glow.  

Ava extended her arm and touched the point of the blade to the side of Camila’s neck.  “Mira.  Go outside.”

“What?”

Ava didn’t take her eyes off of Camila.  “I said, go outside.”

Camila smiled gently, nor did she flinch from Ava’s glare.  “Hello Ava.  Good to see you too.  Please come in, you’re always welcome here.”

“Shut up.  Shut.  Up.  Mira.”

“I’m not going anywhere, what is wrong with you?!?  Stop pointing that at them!”  

“Mira.  You don’t know what you’re talking about.  Please–”  Ava was interrupted by a loud banging on the door, insistent.

Camila didn’t look away from Ava’s eyes as they called, their tone sing-song.  “It isn’t lo-ocked!”

It was quiet enough in the room for Mira to hear the handle turn.  Beatrice walked in, her right arm in a sling, her armor battered and patterned with claw marks.  She closed the door behind her.  “Mira, step away from her.”

Mira stood up from the piano.  Her Halo was starting to glow.  “I’m not going anywhere!  And you two are acting really weird, so stop it!  You’re scaring me!”

Ava narrowed her eyes at Camila.  “You.  I don’t know what you…tell her she can leave.  Now.”

Camila shrugged.  “We're not her mom, and we're not the boss of her, so we don’t tell Mira what to do.”

“Tell.  Her.”

“Or what?”  Camila stood and pressed their throat against the sword.  “Are you going to finish what you started?  Snuff out the rest of humanity?  How long do you think before they breach the defensive matrix once we’re dead?  Once she can send an Angel without worrying that we’ll turn it against her?  How long do you think before the last human being in the world dies?”

Ava swallowed hard.  Something in her face shifted.  The blade left Camila’s throat, though a drop of crimson bloomed where it had been.

Camila turned towards Beatrice, who was approaching slowly.  “Maybe you’d like to do the honors instead?  Or maybe you’d like to show some gratitude, after all these years?  ‘Thank you Camila.’”

Beatrice’s eye twitched and her hands spasmed. 

Camila raised their eyebrows.  “No?  Too hard?  We’ll help.  ‘Thank you Camila, you’re the reason I’m alive.’  ‘Thank you, Camila, without these tattoos, without all this strength, my daughter would be dead.’  ‘Thank you, Camila, if you hadn’t saved everyone then Sammael would have gutted me like a fish while Ava watched and smiled.’”

Beatrice’s eyes were wide, and wild; Mira had never seen her mother look this way before.  “You could beg on your knees for a century and never hear those words from me.  I owe you nothing.  You are base filth.  You disgust me.”  Spittle flew from Beatrice’s lips, and Mira became very still.  “You lie with every breath, you scheming worm.  I despise–”

Camila smirked.  “Sorry, we stopped listening after you said you wanted us on our–”

Beatrice’s left hand shot out and wrapped around Camila’s throat, but slowly, so impossibly slowly, and Mira saw the snarl bloom on Beatrice’s lips and Mira was so angry at them, it burned in her chest, and then she realized that was only partly the anger, and she opened her mouth to scream and the light burst forth with her voice:

“STOP IT!!!!!”

And the light consumed everything. 

Chapter Text

I have not shared my concerns with the others.  The plan is sound, though risky in its primary objective.  The aftermath of success is what concerns me.  Human history is full of instances in which the cure is worse than the disease, if perhaps in a different way.  If Reya is slain, then what?  Upheaval across dozens of realms?  Infighting?  War?  The post-war period is what will shape the future of humanity, of every realm; the lack of attention to it astounds me, especially when my allies will no doubt be most suited to serve as focal points for any political agenda.  Yet what might I achieve on my own, with so little strength, and so little time?

-excerpt from the diary of Jillian Salvius, 12 A.F.

When Mira’s vision returned, Beatrice was on the ground on the other side of the room, expressionless and blinking slowly as she pushed herself to her feet.  Ava was leaning against the interior wall opposite the piano, which was, Mira was thankful to see, undamaged.  

Mira felt a hand on her shoulder, and a doubled voice whispered behind her.  “Thank you.”

“Mira.”  Beatrice was taking small steps forward, her left hand raised and empty.  She sounded like she was trying to tame a horse.  Mira hated it.  “Please.  You don’t understand how dangerous they are.  Let’s just step outside and we can talk.”  

“Dangerous?  Dangerous?!”  Camila spat the word.  “We’re not the ones who put her in danger!  We’re not the ones who broke our word, went back on a plan with the entire human race at stake and everything that is besides!  You wanted to see her again after all this time?  Congratulations, you did.  Now Reya knows about her, about the two of you, and that’s going to give her more than enough to piece together the rest.  Which means that the plan is dead.  We’re all dead, unless we can figure out something else.  Who could possibly be more dangerous than the two of you?”  

“What plan?”  Mira looked between the three of them, but no one answered.  “What plan?  And why can’t you all just stop for a minute?  Stop fighting!”

Camila cocked their eyebrow.  “How much detail would you like?”

“If you’re going to actually explain everything, let me step outside first, because I don’t want to hear that.”  Ava stood and began to step away before Beatrice grabbed her wrist.  

She looked on the verge of tears.  “Please don’t go.”

Ava nodded and sank down next to Beatrice, then wrapped her up in a tight hug.

Camila took a deep breath.  “They can tell you what they are comfortable with.  As for the plan, we’re going to call a meeting.  Lilith won’t attend, but she’s sent word that she abstains, and we share her proxy with Jillian if there’s a need for her vote.”

Mira looked at her mothers and bit her lip.  She hadn’t meant to hurt them.  She looked back at Camila.

“It’s OK.  Despite how they came here, they are welcome.  Rooms will be prepared.  You can talk to them in your room for now if you’d like some privacy.  And if they’re done here.”

Mira still didn’t like the way either of her mothers looked at Camila as they got to their feet, but she nodded.  Better to keep the three of them apart.  “Come on.”

****

Mira sat cross-legged against the headboard of her bed.  It was big enough for at least three people, and was softer than anything she'd slept on in her life.  Big enough to create space between her and her parents, who were sitting at a small round table Mira had been using for sketching.  They had pulled the chairs side by side, close enough that their legs were touching for no good reason.  Ava ran her right hand up and down Beatrice’s left forearm, but her eyes were on Mira.  Beatrice was staring at the sheets.  Mira didn't know how long the three of them had been sitting that way.  Long enough to feel uncomfortable.

“So.  What happened to your arm?”

Beatrice didn't look up.  Her voice was even and quiet.  “A tarask broke it.  I'll be fine.”

“Do you not…I thought you healed quickly.  That was weeks ago…”

Beatrice sighed.  “‘Broke’ was perhaps an understatement.”

Mira didn't know what to say to that. 

“... how did you find me?”

Ava's voice was gentle in a way Mira wasn't sure she trusted anymore.  “We crossed the Alps.  Found Lilith.  She pointed us in the right direction.”

“So you knew she took me here.  On purpose.”

“She shouldn’t have.  She should have known better than that.”

“Well she thinks you’re wrong, or she wouldn’t have done it.  Why are you so…”  Mira needed a breath unexpectedly, and took it.

“What is it, Mira?”  Both of them looked at her like they wanted her to think they cared what she thought, what she wanted.

“We could have been here, couldn’t we?  Tell me I wasn’t born here.  Tell me they wouldn't have let us stay, and we could have–”  Mira’s throat tightened on the words, strangling them.  She was determined not to cry.

Ava walked over slowly to sit beside her, reached out a hand until Mira shied away from it.  “We couldn’t stay, Mira.  You know we couldn’t stay.  And we couldn’t leave you here with them.”

“You could have.  You just didn't want to.  You acted like they were so terrible, but they're nice, and they've been taking care of me and teaching me things and it's not like you said.  It's not.  The only reason you wouldn't is because you hated them more than…”  The thought broke something in her chest and she buried her face in her hands, a poor mask for her sobs.

She felt them crawl onto the bed beside her, half-unwanted hands on her shoulders and arms around her.  Her mama whispering “no, no baby, no.”  They stayed like that until someone came to tell Ava and Beatrice that their room was ready.

****

Breakfast the next morning was awkward.  Mira didn't know what to say, and neither did her mothers.  After, while Mira sulked in her room, Camila came to get her.  “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

Camila smirked.  “The room where it happens.”  They stood for a moment, waiting.

“Is that…am I supposed to know what that means, or…”

“Ugh.  You're making us feel old.”

“You are old.”

Camila rolled their eyes.  “Come on.”

Camila led her to the room with the same long table where Mira first met Jillian.  Jillian was there again, but so were Ava and Beatrice (already glowing faintly blue around the neck and hands), and Yasmine, and a dark skinned, muscular woman Mira didn't recognize.  

Beatrice stood up when Mira and Camila entered; her arm was still in a sling, but she had changed into looser dark robes otherwise.  Mira wondered if her armor was being repaired, or could be.  “What is she doing here?”

Mira rolled her eyes.  “They literally live here, why can’t you let it go for five seconds?”

Beatrice pursed her lips and shifted her gaze to Mira.  “I wasn’t talking about them.”  It took Mira a few seconds to understand, before she started getting angry.

Camila spoke up in her doubled voice before Mira could think of a comeback.  “She’s part of this now.”

Ava didn’t stand, and looked like she was about to cry.  “She’s thirteen.”

“Our house, our rules.  Or perhaps we should vote?  Jillian?”

“There is value in her joining us.”

“Yas?”

“She stays.”

“Dora?”

“Stays.”

Camila looked back in forth between Ava and Beatrice.  “Would you prefer a show of hands?  All in favor of Halobearer Mira Silva joining us for this discussion?”

Everyone lifted a hand except Mira’s parents.  Mira wasn’t sure if she got a vote, but she raised her hand anyway.

Camila sounded satisfied.  “It’s settled then.  And we didn’t even have to make a joke about our vote counting twice.”

Mira sat down across from Beatrice.  Camila sat between her and Dora, across from Ava.  Yasmine sat across from Dora, and Jillian was at the head of the table.

“It’s not good.”  Dora gestured to a map of Earth spread out on the table.  There were small figure of what appeared to be lacquered wood that reminded Mira of chess pieces scattered about the map.  “São Paolo is gone.”  She tilted over a piece on the South American landmass.  “Not clear whether they can track Lilith remotely or whether their intel is just that good now, but they hit two days after a supply run while she was in Shanghai, and they had a distraction in play to keep her attention.  It’s taken a while to get accurate reporting, but it sounds like four Angels, at least two hundred thousand Shining Ones, and dust devils that turned people to stone.  She went all out on this one.  There’s no telling how long it’ll take her to marshall that kind of force again, that kind of energy focus, troops faithful enough not to get caught in the crossfire of a miracle like that, but I’d estimate two months at least, definitely not more than a year.  This was proof of concept for her.  That she could hit a Free City and win without us being able to stop it.  That her people could figure out something new, after Istanbul.  But this was it.  We may have another five years, maybe ten if we’re lucky.  But she’s going to pick them off one by one, and then come here with conventional forces.  If it were me, I’d force Lilith into a choice of where to defend, and make sure she picked the wrong one.  Four Angels would tear her apart in a straight fight, I’d make sure at least two of them were geared to lock her down and fast.  They get her, that’s the ballgame.  No more easy transit.  She bleeds in the other realms without the Angels to manage them, but they get to do their work here uninterrupted.”

Beatrice’s voice was hoarse.  “How many…how long can she last elsewhere?  Can our allies force any comparable weaknesses, anything she can’t afford to lose?”

Camila responded.  “No.  Two realms liberated in the last year, and she didn’t bat an eye.  She’ll lose a half dozen more at least before she can finish us.  But then she’ll start cleaning up those messes.  And we won’t be around to stop her anymore.”

Ava bit her lip.  “What about internal weaknesses, dissension?  There’s no way…we’ve killed too many of them over the years, how can she have enough Angels to cover–”

“Because she’s raising more.”  Jillian’s voice was thin stone.  “It’s dangerous.  Foolish in the long run, to risk creating another Adriel.  But she’s clearly willing to take that risk.  And she doesn’t need to exalt so many that she can’t be choosy.  They’ll be loyalists today, and tomorrow, and it won’t matter to us in two hundred years if one of them turns, or all of them do, because we’ll all be dead.”

Yasmine let out a long breath.  “We’re going to lose.”

Mira thought she was going to throw up.  She looked around the table, hoping someone, anyone there, would say otherwise.  But they mostly looked like they were going to throw up too, except for Camila and Jillian.

“We knew this day was coming,” said Camila.  “We’ve known for years that we were fighting a battle of attrition we couldn’t win.”  They looked at Ava and Beatrice, and their voices hardened.  “That’s why we agreed to proceed as we did.  To stay separate, to operate independently.  To spread them more thinly, but also to gain the element of surprise when we were ready to strike.  To do what we should have done twenty years ago.  I don’t know whether anyone’s bothered to tell you this Mira, but we met, all of us here, and Lilith, a year ago to plan Reya’s assassination.”

Camila paused as Mira tried to process what she was hearing.

“The plan required surprise.  If Reya knew we were working together, knew that we could work together in spite of our differences, she would know how much danger she was in, and she would take steps to defend herself.  You’ve seen how dangerous massed tarasks can be.  Imagine tarasks that can’t be banished back to their home dimension, because they’re in their home dimension. And in spite of all that, in spite of everything at stake, two of our number decided to put everything at risk, because they couldn’t–”

Ava slammed her palm on the table.  “We couldn’t have known what would happen!  And for all we know, nothing has changed.  Reya could still–”

Jillian tapped the exoskeleton over her right arm on the table, slowly, loudly, until the room fell silent.  “The tarasks have seen you three together, and so Reya has seen you three together.  The tarasks saw you open a portal to Lilith, so it is at least possible that they know where you sent Mira, even if they could not follow.  Which means we must take it as a certainty.   You, Beatrice, Lilith, all working together?  After not a hint of such for thirteen years?  We must not presume Reya’s incompetence.  If that was misdirection, she can easily infer that your avoidance of the Protectorate is also misdirection.  She will prepare in any case, and a direct assault of the kind we planned originally will fail.”

Dora broke the silence that followed.  “We need a new plan.  A new pressure point, something new to exploit.  I’m open to suggestions.  Luring her into a vulnerable position feels like the general concept we need, but I’m not sure how to do that without putting some or all of us at extreme risk.”

Mira looked around at the group, but everyone seemed lost in thought.  Except for Camila, who was looking at her.  “Can I help?”

“NO!”  Ava and Beatrice stood in unison.

No one said anything at first.  No one reminded them that Mira had been training.  No one asked them why they had bothered training her with the Halo for months if they didn't think she could do anything with it.  No one asked them what good their training even was if they didn't think Mira could use it to help.  No one shouted at them or yelled, so Mira didn't either, mostly because she was afraid then everyone else would agree, that she was too young, too weak, too inexperienced…

Mira hoped it would be Camila who stood up for her, but it was Dora who spoke.  “She has a Halo.”

Ava and Beatrice looked at each other and Mira had trouble telling herself that concern was different than doubt.  “She's a child.”

“But she’s trained?  She knows how to use it in a fight?”

Beatrice huffed.  “Of course she–”

Dora interrupted her by throwing a dagger at Mira's face.  Mira felt almost smug at how slowly it moved to her eyes.  Not glowing, so no divinium, so she shifted and let it pass through her.  She heard it bounce off the stone floor and clatter into a corner behind her.

Everyone at the table had stood up, except Jillian.  Ava and Beatrice looked angry, but not much more than they had a moment ago.  Dora had a small smile that Mira decided looked impressed.  Yasmine was clutching her chest and Camila had their hands on their forehead and was staring at the table in something like disbelief.  Jillian hadn't moved, but her eyes were wide and she was breathing more heavily than usual.  She and Camila looked at each other, and Mira couldn't figure out what passed between them before Camila and Yasmine sat down.

Ava pushed out through gritted teeth, “Don't do that again.”

Dora scoffed.  “It's not divinium.  She would have been fine.  Good job with her training, by the way.  She didn't even flinch–”

“General.”  Jillian’s voice was firm, or at least as firm as Mira had heard her be.  “Any testing of Mira's capabilities while she is the Protectorate goes through me.  Is that understood?”

Dora raised an eyebrow.  “That an order?”

“It is.”  

Dora glanced over at Camila, then back at Jillian.  She nodded and raised her hand to her forehead in a strange gesture, hand open and stiff and palm facing down.  Then she sat down, and Ava and Beatrice followed.

Camila spoke up.  “No one is suggesting she lead the charge against Reya tomorrow.  But she is something Reya can't anticipate.  Another Halobearer, skilled, but young…she may assume you wouldn't put her in harm's way.  If we can teach her to open portals, or find a way to lure enough tarasks to her while keeping her safe…there are ways this can work that Reya won't be able to anticipate.  Vulnerabilities she won't be able to see.”

Beatrice was shaking.  “You're talking about deliberately exposing her to tarasks, to Reya.  Do you think we would ever allow you to–”

“No one is putting her in danger, Beatrice,” Jillian said.  “No more than she already is.  In any event, no one needs to decide anything now.  Mira has the Halo, Mira will continue to train with the Halo, and we will, all of us, continue to work on new proposals when tempers have settled.  I do not think we are in a position to take any options off the table, but neither should we assume that Mira is the linchpin for us going forward.”

Camila frowned.  “Jillian, this isn't going to be solved by not talking about it, and we don't have time to–”

Jillian slumped forward and nearly hit her head on the table, and would have if Ava had not sprinted through the table and caught her.  Jillian shook her head and sat up again.  “I'm fine.”

Yasmine was already at the door, speaking to someone outside.  “Send for Dr. Torres, she needs to come immediately, and an EM squad.”

“I said I'm fine.”   

They all stood and watched as Jillian's chair carried her from the room.

****

“Mira, listen to me, please…”  As if Mira didn't know what Ava was about to say.  Mira didn't bother opening the door to her room, she just walked through it; only Beatrice needed to open the door, and she could open it for herself if she felt like it.

“Why?  So you can tell me how dangerous it is?  That I need to be more careful, when I'm like the second hardest person to kill in that room?  Oh, I know, I need to not listen to Camila because they’re sooooo bad, right?”

Mira heard the door closing before she heard Beatrice’s voice.  “That's not the issue, Mira.  You are thirteen, this is not your fight to–”

“Not my fight!?!”  Mira spun around to face her mothers.  “I've been in combat and survival training as long as I can remember.  I've been learning counter-interrogation tactics since I was what, eight?  People have only really started trying to kill me since you two came back into my life, but don't pretend like I was going to be a farmer.  All I want, all I've ever wanted to be, is someone who protects people.  And now I can.   I can do something that protects–”

Ava shook her head and tried to talk over her.  “Mira, that's not your–”

“It is my job!!! It is my job!!! I have a Halo, so unless you're going to give it to Dora or someone else, it's my job, because I can.   Because people need help, and I can help them!!  And that's what you were training me for, wasn't it!?  And now we're here and I'm talking to Camila and all of a sudden you two can't–”

Beatrice shook her head violently.  “This is not about–”

“She hurt you?  She broke your trust and did something that hurt you without asking?  Something that saved your life, saved a lot of lives, and she says she had to do it, but she decided without you?”  Mira could feel the air thinning, or thickening, something that was giving her less with every stuttering breath.  “HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT?!?!?”   She didn’t mean to shriek it, and hated the way her voice warbled and cracked in the middle, and the wetness dripping from her chin, and knew idly in the back of her mind that she should be embarrassed but was too angry to care.

Mira watched her mothers’ eyes widen, their faces contort around their guilt (she hoped it was guilt, knew they deserved it to be guilt).  Ava’s crumpled into something close to the grief she showed the day they abandoned her; Beatrice’s was more subtle, a shift of the eyebrows, a tensing of the neck muscles, maybe other things Mira could have seen if they hadn’t stolen so much time from her.

“How?  How is it different from what you did to me?  Because they’re dangerous?   Because they killed a lot of people?”  Mira waved her hand vaguely in Ava’s direction.  “So what, is that how I’m supposed to act?!  I’m supposed to shut you out for what, twenty years?  Forever?  For the rest of our lives?!?”  She pulled roughly at her fingers and paced a few steps back and forth.  “You know what?  It is different.  You’re worse.   She was your sister, but you were my moms.   You were supposed to be there for me, and you weren’t.   So stop pretending like you’re so high and mighty.  Stop pretending like you get to tell me who I can talk to and who I can’t.”

“Mira,” Ava almost whispered, “we were just trying to–”

“I don’t care!!!  I’m sick of it!  All you do is tell me where to go and what to do.  My whole life since you showed up has been people telling me what to do and where to go and not telling me ANYTHING!!!  They're the first person who actually told me anything without me having to force it out of them.  Who treated me like I deserved to know what’s actually going on!  Like I mattered!!!  Instead of just sending me from place to place without telling me where I'm going, or kidnapping me, or….”  Mira paused to catch her breath.  “I'm tired of everyone deciding everything for me.”

Beatrice stared down at her hands, but Ava was taking a few steps closer.  “Mira?  I'm sorry.  Can I…can I give you a hug?”

Mira wanted to tell her that a hug was the last thing she wanted, that she was going to be angry at her mom forever, that she never wanted to see her again.  “Yes.”

Mira didn't want it to feel as good as it did.  She was certain it shouldn't have felt safe or comforting.  She shouldn't have wanted to hug back.  And yet.

Ava spoke softly above Mira's ear.  “Can we please have dinner together tonight?  Your mom and I should talk about what you said and think about it, and then talk to you some more.  But we love you, and we missed you, and we would really like to have dinner with you.  If you want to.”

Mira felt like saying no.  “Fine.”

****

Camila's expression when they opened the door to their chambers told Mira she looked awful.

“We had a fight.”

Camila pressed their lips together and cocked their head.  “We're sorry, dear.  Come in, please.”

Mira walked over and threw herself down on the couch.  “UGH.  Why are they like this?”

Camila spread their dress as they lowered themselves into a nearby chair.  “They each have a lifetime of trauma and a terrible sense of humor, you could be talking about almost anything.”

That got a laugh out of Mira.  “Why do they think they’re funny?  They literally only make the worst jokes to crack themselves up.”

Camila smiled.  “They’ve always been like that, ever since they found each other.”

Mira let her smile fade as she stared up at the high ceiling.  “Why do they always think they can tell me what to do?  I wasn’t…at the Cradle, there were rules, but I mostly got to talk to who I want to talk to, go where I wanted if there weren’t chores or lessons.  Almost the whole time since I met them, though, I’ve had to go where other people wanted, do what other people wanted.  I’m thirteen, I’m not a kid anymore, I can make decisions on my own.”

Camila didn’t say anything at first.  “That’s funny.  Not in a laughing way, but…I don’t think your parents have gotten to live for themselves since they were younger than you.  Maybe Ava did, for a little bit, right after she got the Halo.  But she was paralyzed and trapped in a terrible place from the time she was seven until then, and then we found her and she became the Warrior Nun, and her life hasn’t been her own since.  Beatrice, I’m not sure she ever got to live for herself until after Ava left, and even that didn’t last long.  This war took everything from them.”

“You don’t sound mad.  Why aren’t you mad at them?”

“We are, sometimes.  But we understand.”

“I wish they did.”  Mira sat up.  “Why can’t they just accept that we’re all on the same side?  Why do they act like this?”

Camila smiled sadly, then came over to stand next to Mira and held out their hands for Mira to take.  “Our darling girl.  We just want you to remember something for us, alright?”  Mira nodded, and Camila continued, clasping Mira's hands tightly.  “We're your family.  Sometimes families fight.  Sometimes they have bad blood.  But we’re still family.  That means all of us are in your corner.  We're a team.  So trust your team, OK?  Be patient.  Be calm.  Because as dark as things look now, we promise you, one day very soon, we're going to win.  We're going to be free.  And it's going to be so beautiful.”  Camila shook their head as they said it, as though overcome with emotion, and their smile would have lit the night.

Camila walked back to the piano and sat down at it.  “But in the meantime, have you ever heard of Alicia Keys?”  The lights then flickered and went out, not just in the palace, but out the window and across the city.  The only illumination was from the still-setting sun, and Camila’s right eye.

“Don't worry,” they said in their doubled voice, “the backup generators will come on in–”

The only warning was a momentary whistling, rising rapidly in volume, before the wall in front of Camila and ceiling above them erupted in a massive explosion, crushing them and the piano under a pile of shattered stone.

“NO!!!” screamed Mira.  She tried to rush forward to help, knowing it was too late, but found she couldn't move.  Not when she saw the air ripping asunder in red and gold before her, and enormous, metallic clawed hands reaching through towards her chest.

Chapter Text

In exchange, I ask for the power to save my people, my world, from the horrors that you have inflicted upon them. I can rebuild humanity, and divert their worship to you, but I am old and frail. I will perish soon, and you will be left to contend with the intractability of your most cunning and hateful foe. Give me time, and give me strength, and I will give you in return that which you have desired most for centuries.

-excerpt from a correspondence in the handwriting of Jillian Salvius, unsigned, undated

Mira woke alone in a near-featureless room. Pale walls, floor, ceiling, all more or less the color of eggshell. There was no door. A window looked out onto swirling reddish yellow dust. It was difficult to tell how far she could see out the window; sometimes she felt as though the storm was clearing, but it never did. The ambient light never changed; she could not see the Sun, nor any hint that one existed in that place. Sometimes there were flashes of red light, deep beyond the glass.

The first night, a woman came. Mira preferred that. To pretend that what visited her was a woman. That the flesh it seemed to wear covered blood and bone and a heart. And then she would forget to pretend, and she wept.

It came dressed in white, a dress that looked like a discolored beetle, and a flower's petals, and a fleshless corpse, and when it touched Mira she could feel the burning inside her mind. It still hurt, on the top of her head, the left side, but no matter how many times she felt at her scalp she never found the scarred burned skin that her nerves swore was there, had been there ever since.

How many times had she slept? She thought four, but she had no sense of time. She had been taught that one's sense of time could distort in confinement; she had also been taught that the Tyrant could distort the reality of time. She supposed that meant it didn't matter what the truth was. She hadn't eaten. Somehow she wasn't hungry. Or thirsty, for that matter.

She still had the Halo. She couldn't understand that part. She thought the tarask would have torn it from her. That was what they were for, recovering Halos. But it was there. In her chest. She hadn't worked up the courage to try to walk through a wall yet. It felt foolish to try, without a plan for what to do once she got to the other side. She had made that mistake before. So she waited.

****

She dreamt.

In her dream, she was running from Camila’s room, from the tomb of the Sentinel of Humanity. She turned and saw the tarask smashing through the wall, then barrelling towards her. She was fast, had been fast then, fast enough to outpace it until it stepped through space in front of her. She had screamed, and turned, and felt the claws rip through her back, and stumbled and thought she would die, but when she turned the tarask had been sliced to pieces along its width, though she could see no one and nothing else in the hallway.

She thought perhaps it was her parents, and ran towards their room by instinct. When she opened the door, though, the room was empty, save for a few patches of blood on the walls and floor.

The last image she saw of the Salvian Protectorate was of Angels ripping red-gold tears open in the sky over the city, two, four, six, before the air tore asunder around her, and great and terrible claws reached through, against which the Halo did not avail her, and she was pulled backward through a curtain of liquid flame.

Then she woke up, and the nightmare continued. And then she slept again.

****

Mira opened her eyes.

She imagined her Mother there, in her mind’s eye. “You remember what I taught you, right?”

Yes. Solitary confinement is one of the worst possible punishments. People do not do well on their own. After a week or so, you’ll see things that aren’t there, you’re mind stops working properly.

“Good. That’s real good. So what do you do?”

Remember your people. All of the people I love are with me, are part of me. Talk to them, until you find a way out. And remember I’m not alone.

“And?”

And don’t have those conversations out loud, in case someone is listening.

“Perfect. That’s my girl.”

…I’m not yours though, not really.

“The hell you aren’t. I may not have made you, but I raised you, didn’t I?”

…yes.

“We don’t belong to our parents. Not the ones who made us or the ones who raised us. Didn’t I teach you better than that?”

Yes, Mother.

“I told you about my parents, didn’t I?”

Yes.

“So you know that man is not my family. And the foster homes, and the people in the charge of my group homes, not theirs either. My mama is my family. My sisters are my family. You are my family. Blood or no. Right?"

Mira nodded.

"So you get to choose. And not all of us grow up the way people do in stories. But we still matter. And we still get to find our families. OK?"

OK.

"Good. And don't get discouraged. I know it's hard, but you're doing good. Stay strong, maybe you still find a way out of this."

How?

"Shoot, I'll know when you know."

****

She imagined Nadia.

"Do you have any idea how amazing you are?"

Stop, that's…she wouldn't say that.

"OK, so how many more kisses before you think I would say that?"

That's…I think this was a bad idea.

"Because you're imagining kissing me."

I'm trying really hard not to! That feels weird if you're not here.

"Do you think I don't imagine kissing you when you're not around?"

Mira felt her cheeks get hot. I don't know, I never, I haven't thought about—

"How are you going to lie to yourself in a conversation in your head?"

Shut up.

"Make me."

****

She imagined Lilith.

You were hiding something from me.

"Do you think so?"

Yes.

"What could it have been, do you think?"

I don't know yet. But I heard you, with Mother.

"What did you hear?"

You were talking about what I could do. How I could see wraiths before I had a Halo. Something about a "best chance" and making a hard choice. Something about me.

"Why do you think I would have been talking about what you could do before you had a Halo?"

Mira thought, and thought, and thought, and had no answers. Why the letters?

"Keep going."

If you wanted Jillian or Camila or Yasmine to know something, you could have told me, and I would have told them. But you didn't. There was something you didn't want me to know. Something that you wanted them to know. Maybe the same thing you were talking to Mother about.

"Maybe."

What was in the letters?

"I wish I could tell you."

****

You're dead.

"Yes," Camila said. "Well, maybe. You know Nadia would tell you that you never saw our body."

Could you have survived that?

"We don't know. Adriel could have, and would have; you know how hard an Angel is to kill. But we aren't an Angel."

I wish I had more time with you. I liked talking to you.

"We know. But on the bright side, now maybe your moms won't hate us so much!"

I don't want to talk about that.

"Because you don't know if they're alive or dead?"

Stop it. I don't want to think about this.

"We wish you could stop yourself then. It might be OK, though. They would have been harder to kill than Camila."

Stop. Please, stop.

"An army of tarasks couldn't do the job. Although Beatrice was injured this time. That can't have helped."

Mira was crying, which was not what she was supposed to be doing. It wasn't good to show weakness to your captors, not unless you had a specific reason to do so.

Please.

"We bet they're alive. Maybe they even got away! For all you know, they could be coming to rescue you again, maybe with Lilith in tow!" Camila frowned sadly. "But you don't really believe that, do you?"

And so Mira cried herself to sleep.

****

She imagined her mothers.

She imagined their touch. That she was cradled between them, their arms wrapped around her.

I really hope you both are still alive.

"We are," whispered Beatrice.

I miss you so much. I don't even know how long I've been here, but I wish you were here.

Ava brushed Mira's hair from her face. "We do too, sweetheart."

I never told you I love you. I never…we never made up properly. I don't want you to die thinking I still hate you. I don't want you to die at all.

"We know, baby. We know. We love you so, so much. And no matter what, we're always watching over you, right?"

No. That's not true. It's just some silly saying you came up with. Before you left me. If it were true, if all the things you said to me, that Mother said to me, were true, she couldn't hurt me like this. SHE would be the one in here, seven times as long, worried that everyone she loved was dead.

Beatrice rested her chin on the top of Mira's head.  "Reya doesn't love anyone, darling."

And Ava whispered, "That's why we're going to win."

****

Mira opened her eyes.

Had she slept again? Was she sleeping still? She had difficulty explaining what she thought she saw.

“Jillian?”

Jillian looked at Mira from her chair and furrowed her brow. “Hello Mira. How are you?”

“I’m not…” I’m not well, she thought.

“You’re not what?”

Mira wasn’t imagining things, at least not intentionally. She wasn’t sure how to probe if she was hallucinating or not.

“I am not considered a threat, and so I have some greater degree of freedom than others. I asked permission to check on you. You should not have been isolated like this. I have some math problems here, can you go through them with me?”

“...math problems?” Mira decided this was not a hallucination, her subconscious could not possibly have come up with the idea of Jillian Salvius giving her a math test. She hoped.

Math had never been Mira’s strong suit, but the testing wasn’t hard. Neither was the next test, where she just had to say the first word that popped into her head when Jillian said different words. Mira wasn’t actually sure how it was even possible to fail a test like that.

After a while, Jillian nodded. “Good. Some mild impairment, but nothing dramatic. I’ll want to revisit these, and you and I will continue to meet to ensure your condition doesn’t deteriorate, but this is good. How are you feeling?”

Mira shook her head. “You’re not supposed to talk about that. It gives your captors better information to use for interrogation purposes.”

“Oh Mira. I’m afraid we are past that. We must assume there will be no escape from this place.”

“Then why are we still alive?”

“That is a very good question, and one worthy of further consideration. I think I would like for you to think about it on your own for a time, before I share my thoughts. Perhaps at our next meeting. For now, let’s talk about something else.”

When Jillian did not continue, Mira asked, “My parents?”

“Alive. Relatively unharmed, for the time being. Restrained in ways such that their powers will not avail them. I have not been allowed to speak with them, but I have seen them.”

“How did…?”

“A saboteur disabled the grid. Their infiltration was…they knew where to target Camila, and how, and when. Before you were born, and even before I was, humanity created weapons that could inflict devastating harm from enormous distances. So far away you could walk for days from the target to the weapon before you could see it. Reya’s forces found, or built one, and managed to bring it within range of the city. With Camila gone, and nothing stopping the tarasks from entering the Protectorate, and two Halobearers in the palace…it would have been easy.”

“...is that it then? Are we…is humanity doomed?”

Jillian’s chair carried her to the window, where she looked out at the rolling miasma of dust. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Whether we are doomed, and if so, when that began.”

“All I ever wanted was to help people. To save them.” Mira thought she looked melancholy. “Things are bad now, I know that, but it's not Ava's fault. Not Adriel's either, or Reya's even. They sped up the process, but this was always going to happen. The more humanity communicated with itself, the more fragmented it became. The more power we obtained as a species, the more that power became concentrated in the hands of a few people. And none of them knew what to do with it. They just tried to keep it for themselves and gather more. When it became clear that disaster was on the horizon, they…we…didn't do anything to stop it. I spent all my time searching for a miracle. The rest just prayed for one. They built bunkers that would break in a decade, islands that would flood in two, and pretended there was a way to survive in a boiling world. Some built lifeboats too flimsy to take them to deserted islands too barren to support them and called it visionary.”

Mira watched a tear roll down Salvius’ cheek. “Do you know, when I first began to understand divinium, when I built the Ark, I thought I had found the solution. A holy relic wrought anew, that would literally save us from an apocalyptic flood, take us to another world free from illness, somewhere we could be safe.” She looked back at Mira. “But it was a delusion. Adriel showed me that. Because wherever we went, whatever we did, there would always be people like him who wanted power. And they would use it to help themselves and hurt others.”

She rolled closer and looked Mira in the eyes. “You're a bright girl. Can you see the solution?"

Mira shook her head. "No. If…if there are always going to be people like that…it will never be…" Mira trailed off.

"Yes, exactly. VERY clever, aren't you, Mira? Tell me, if you would, how much do you know of history, of our history, before the War?"

Mira shrugged. "Not much. Mother said we needed to focus on the world as it is, not daydream about the world that used to be."

Jillian's lips curled slightly to the side. "A narrow view, and one I do not share. Even if we could defeat Reya, how might we forge a better world in her absence? What do you imagine would happen, if she were slain?"

"I don’t know. I guess…the people who were around before the War would teach the rest of us how to rebuild?"

"That presupposes that the world before the War was worth rebuilding. Do you know what the world was like before Adriel came to Earth?"

"No."

"Monstrous. People killing each other. As likely to annihilate progress and learning as to encourage it. In fact, Adriel came to Earth in the middle of one particular conflict, in one particular part of the world, where people were killing each other over which God to worship, never mind that both religions came from the same tradition. Certainly never mind that all the worship on both sides fed only Reya."

Mira frowned. "But that's…"

"Yes."

"Was…was Reya manipulating them?"

Jillian moved her head ever so slightly from side to side. "They manipulated each other sometimes. But humans have never needed Reya to persuade them to kill each other. Or to destroy the world."

Jillian sighed. “If you survive this, Mira, you must learn. If there is a time after Reya, when we are masters of our own destiny, we must know the mistakes of the past if we wish not to repeat them.”

And then Mira was alone again.

****

Mira opened her eyes.

There was a woman standing in Mira’s room. Older than Mother, but maybe not by much. She was pale-skinned, with short dark blonde or light brown hair, grown only a centimeter or two from her scalp. She had piercing blue eyes, and a gently hooked nose. She was dressed all in white, and looked oddly familiar, though Mira couldn’t say why.

Mira didn’t move, nor did the woman.

“Jillian?” Mira tried and failed to understand what she was seeing. “How did you–”

Their hands brushed.

Mira was sitting with her eyes closed. Her head was covered by something soft and smooth, though under it was something firmer, but only in a thin band resting at the level of her forehead. She felt weak, like she could barely move. Her right arm was cold in places, where it touched a metal frame of some sort. More than anything, Mira hurt, everywhere. Even the brightness against her eyelids hurt.

“Jillian!!! Look at me!!!”

Mira opened Jillian’s eyes.

In front of her was her mama. Ava’s hands were consumed by glowing blue orbs, attached in turn to the pale floor by glowing blue chains. She was on her knees; the chains were not long enough for her to stand. A path of dried blood led up her cheek to a gash on her forehead. For some reason, it wasn’t healing, not the way it should.

“Please. Please, Jillian. Don’t do this. You can’t do this.”

Mira felt her lips move, and lungs. “I’m sorry, Ava. Truly, I am. Perhaps someday soon you will come to understand the necessity of all this.”

“We could have come up with a plan. We just needed a little time. A little hope. Why couldn't you—"

Mira heard a groan to her right. Her head turned. “Ava?” Her mom was lying face down on the ground, several meters away from Ava. Beatrice’s hands were both confined in a single metal orb, also glowing faintly blue, and a seamless divinium collar around her neck was attached by a chain to the floor. Mira watched as Beatrice slowly raised her head to apprise herself of her surroundings.

“Bea?”

“Ava?” Beatrice’s head swiveled. “No. No, no, NO!” She tried to stand, but the chain attached to her collar wasn’t long enough. When she realized that she wrapped her legs around the chain and began to thrash about wildly, back and forth, screaming all the while. “AVA!!!! No, nononono, Ava, Ava, AAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!”

The chain did not give an inch, nor did the smooth, white floor show even a crack for all the strength brought to bear.

Then Beatrice looked over at Ava, and Mira saw the tears in her eyes, the anguish. “No, no, Ava, Ava, I’m sorry, I can’t, Ava, Mira, where, our baby, no, no, no, no, no….” Beatrice collapsed with her face against the floor, sobbing, and occasionally screaming through her tears.

“Jillian…please….” Ava was looking at her, expressionless. Mira wouldn't have known what to make of her, if not for the tears flowing rivers down her cheeks. “I don't know what we did, I don't know why, but please, not Mira. Please. She can go back to Mary, she doesn't have to be part of any of this. Please Jillian, I'm begging you. If you ever cared about any of us, if you remember what it's like to lose a child to her, please.”

“I'm sorry, Ava. But Mira will have a choice at least. The rest of us have already made ours.”

Ava's face collapsed. “No, please no, please, Jillian, you have to get her out of here, you can't–” The rest of what Ava might have said was cut from her throat by wordless pain.

“It’s alright Ava. Your part in this is almost over. Let me help you lay your burden down.”

Beatrice’s head shot up. “No. Jillian, no–”

Mira's eyes found a spot above Ava's head where reality was tearing.

“No, don't, stop–”

The tarask came through and reached into Ava's back.

“NO NO NO AVA, AVA, LOOK AT ME, AVA, NOOO–”

Ava turned her head with tears in her eyes, and smiled, and whispered “Bea…” as the Halo came free in the tarask's claw. Then she collapsed on the ground.

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Beatrice struggled uselessly to reach Ava, and her screams continued as the chair turned. Into her view came a white throne, and on it sat a thing shaped like a woman clad in garments the color of sun-bleached bone. It gestured, and Mira felt a burning sensation in her back, and then all her pain was gone.

Mira blinked, and when she opened her eyes there was no throne, and no thing, and no chair, and she looked at Jillian Salvius, standing there in Mira’s cell. Jillian looked back at her and cocked her head.

Mira was sure she was fast enough. And she was certainly angry enough, angry enough not to think about what it meant to take a life, maybe angry enough to do it even if she did think it through. All she had to do was reach through Jillian’s chest to get her mother's Halo.

But Mira was wrong. She wasn't fast enough to get past the wall of translucent blue that blocked her path as Jillian opened her hand.

“Now, now. None of that.”

Mira fell to her knees and tried not to scream. “You…you betrayed them.”

Jillian gnawed briefly on her lips. “I’m afraid so, child. But I’m not here to discuss that.”

She crouched before Mira, unblinking. “I’m here to talk to you about the future.”

Chapter Text

I just think it's a little extreme. She's got no combat skills, no special powers. She's not a threat. Honestly, it's a waste of time and energy. The two of you should be putting your differences aside and working to figure out something that will give us the edge we need to change the dynamics at a strategic level. Seriously, what do you think is going to come out of shouting matches at council meetings? Even if you're right, and you can't trust her, that's a problem with a time limit. She's not going to keel over tomorrow, but she's not well. How long until she needs one of her chairs to get around? How long before the sleep deprivation catches up with her, or the divinium exposure that she keeps insisting is "no big deal," or the stress of ruling the largest remaining human state on Earth? What are you so afraid of?

- Correspondence from General Dora to the Mirrorsouled, circa 14 A.F.

Mira had never been more angry in her life than she was at that moment.

"I want you to understand, Mira, that the questions I asked you are not theory. This is not some flight of fancy for us to ponder as we lay in the grass and stair at the clouds, 'if only our wildest dreams come true, what then?' In a very short while, Reya will withdraw from Earth, and leave us to our own devices. We will, all of us, be as free as we ever were. And so the question I must ask myself is: what then?"

"You weren't supposed to take us back to how things were. You were supposed to protect us! You were supposed to make things better!"

"Mira. I understand you are upset. Believe me, no one understands better than I do the pain of losing family—"

Jillian touched her shoulder.

****

Mira was on the floor, sobbing, in a body too tall. She felt weak, and could barely see through the tears. She heard a knocking on the door, muffled, unimportant.

"Jillian. Jillian, please." An unfamiliar voice. Unimportant.

The only thing that mattered was the toilet. A bathroom, like the one Mira remembered from Ava's home, though larger. There was too much space between the toilet and the bathtub on one side, the sink on the other. But those didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered was the toilet.

From her position, collapsed on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite, Mira could not see what was inside it. But she knew, to her bones, that it was the most important thing in the world.

She was wearing a dressing gown, stained red about her lap. Why was it red? Mira had menstruated, had learned what to expect from the experience well before she felt it for the first time, but this felt different. It…hurt. Something had gone wrong.

More knocking, louder, but Mira's ears were muffled by pain, and so the knocking did not intrude upon her woe as it was intended to. "Jillian. Please open the door. Please, whatever, whatever's happened, please talk to me. We can face it—"

A lie. Jillian knew, and so Mira knew, that the voice was lying. The speaker would see, and would know that Jillian was unfit. Inadequate. A failure. Malformed. A killer. Wrong.

How many times had she failed? Mira felt the pain was well-worn, a sorrow come again and again, heard Jillian wonder "When will it end?"

The knocking stopped. "It happened again." They knew. "I…this can't work if you don't…" A pause. "I can't do this anymore." Footsteps, moving away. Another pause. A door closing.

Mira stared at the toilet bowl, Jillian's whole world concealed within. Felt Jillian steel herself. To think words unfamiliar to Mira, words like hysterosalpingography, and thyroid function, hysteroscopic imaging. To contemplate machines and methods that Mira did not understand, but knew, somehow, would bring Jillian the world again.

Mira stood up. She did not look at the world.

****

"—but you are looking at this all wrong. This is a victory." Jillian's voice was harsh in Mira's ear.

Mira shook her head to try to clear the pain, the grief. To remember where she was. "A victory?!  You betrayed us to Reya, you killed Camila, you, who knows how many others…what kind of victory? You've lost the war!"

“Oh Mira.  This war was lost before you were born.  Everything since has been…maneuvering.  A negotiation over the terms of surrender. And no terms, no realistic terms, could ever have been better than this.”

Jillian placed her hand on Mira's arm.

****

"You don't understand," Mira said in Jillian's voice. "I cannot lose him. I will not lose him."

She looked to the left, where a strange and enormous bubble enveloped a sort of play space for a small child, an infant, really. The bubble was transparent, but slightly brown, and inside with the child was a person covered entirely in a white … hazmat suit was the word that Jillian's mind summoned. The clothing appeared to be a single piece, covering the person's entire body, with a clear rectangle over the face. They appeared to be playing with the child.

Mira looked back across the table. She was sitting outdoors at a small round table, across from a man with light brown skin, dark curly hair, and a serious face. Behind him was the sea.

"Dr. Salvius, if I am correct, you will not have to. This substance is real, and it has properties unheard of by traditional science. Properties the Church has been at great pains to conceal from the world. They believe it to be the relic of an angel come to Earth, a miracle. I believe that a mind like yours could find a use for it grounded in reality. A medical miracle, a true miracle. One that could even save your son."

Mira looked over at the boy (Michael said Jillian's voice in her head), then back to the man. "And you know where I can find this substance?"

The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded pouch made of paper, then slid it across the table. "I've taken the liberty of preparing the appropriate applications for licensure, permitting, visas. All the contractors have been arranged, the correct contacts made in immigration and customs on both ends. Come with me, oversee this personally. I guarantee you that you will see potential in this substance that I never could, and that the Church could never dream of."

Mira gnawed her lower lip and stared off at the waves in the distance. "I never fancied myself an archaeologist."

The man smiled, chuckled a bit. "Neither did I. Yet here we are."

Mira opened the pouch, the envelope, and read the papers inside. They meant nothing to her, but Jillian knew them to be "in order." She signed Jillian's name at the bottom.

The man nodded and stood, holding out his hand. "I promise you will not regret it, Dr. Salvius."

Mira stood and grasped his hand firmly in her own. "Mr. Schaeffer, I must insist that you call me Jillian."

****

Jillian sighed at Mira. She looked disappointed. "What was our goal, in this war? What was the change we sought to bring about by fighting?"

"To kill Reya!"

Jillian stood. "Why? For the pleasure of hurting one who has hurt us? For the satisfaction of victory, of declaring that we remained standing and she did not? Why?"

Mira stood and reached out to push her, as though the force of the motion could make her see sense. "So we could be free!"

Mira's hand touched Jillian's shoulder.

****

Mira's hand shook as it held the drawing. There were others on the desk in front of her. A child's drawings, crude colors and lines and shapes. Most showed a figure of a person, surrounded by gold. Michael's imaginary friend, an "angel."

The one in her hand did not show an angel.

Michael had drawn it on graph paper. Had written it first in pencil, as if afraid he'd get it wrong. It was not, strictly speaking, a drawing at all. It was a mathematical inequality. A rather famous one, in fact. Mira understood this, instinctively, though she had never seen or heard of it before. Jillian's thoughts ran through her head, loud and wild with words and concepts Mira had never heard before and could barely grasp.

Jillian knew that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, roughly put, stated that there was a limit to the precision with which one could know the position and momentum of a particle. The more precisely one tested where a particle was, the less information could be gleaned about its movement, and vice versa. Mira saw the formula in Jillian's mind: ΔxΔp ≥ ħ/2.

The inequality in front of her, written by Jillian's four-year-old son, appeared to be an exact reproduction of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, with one critical exception: it was inverted.

ΔxΔp ≤ ħ/2 was nonsense; Mira could feel it in Jillian's confusion, in the erraticness of her breathing, in the way her hand shook. The uncertainty principle was not theory, it was tested fact, one of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Its inversion, if true, would suggest the annihilation of almost a century of physics, that humanity's understanding of the fundamental laws of reality was at odds with countless experimental observations. It could not be true.

Neither could it be true that Jillian's four-year-old son knew the uncertainty principle. Or the meaning of the formulae below it. Or of the wave forms he had drawn on the next page. Or the eigenvalues he had calculated on the page after that. Or the figures that appeared to describe the engineering specifications of a metal frame of some kind on the page after that.

Mira paused as Jillian considered briefly that she was hallucinating, then took the papers down the hall to Michael's room. Mira raised her hand to shut off the cameras before she entered.

The room was bluish silver, dominated by a large glass enclosure. Inside was a sort of padded bed, light gray, with a stuffed bear, and Michael, drawing something on a piece of paper, all blues and grays.

"Hello mummy."

"Michael, my love. I wanted to talk to you about your drawings. Where did you see these symbols?"

Michael did not look up. "He said you would need to help. To know what was true. He asked me to practice to get them right, so you would know." He looked up, his eyes a brilliant blue. "Did I do good?"

Mira felt her breath catch. "Your…your angel told you to draw these?"

Michael nodded.

"Why?"

Michael cocked his head and blinked. Listening. "He says it will take us to a place where there's no getting sick. So I won't be sick anymore. So I won't die. He says you'll need more divinium. And something special, to power it."

"What will take us to a place where you won't be sick, Michael?"

Michael held up his drawing. He hadn't finished coloring it in yet, but it showed a gray ring around a blue circle. "The door."

****

Mira blinked, and Jillian was in front of her again in the room with no door.

"Free? And what is it you imagine I have achieved? Nothing? Do you think I bargained for my life? That my survival alone was the price I placed on my loyalty? If I am called the Savior of Humanity, then do I not have a duty to save as many as I can? Should I have let your mothers do as they pleased, for a while, at least until Reya's forces closed in? Should I have let millions die to preserve the freedom of the few, and that only for a short time?"

Mira shook her head. She was having difficulty following the thread as the Halo tossed her back and forth between past and present. Jillian put her finger under Mira's chin and lifted.

****

Mira wiped the tears from Jillian's face. "Can I help you, Camila?"

Behind her, a door closed. "I wanted to talk to you," Camila said, in one voice only.

"Of course. Please sit down."

Camila's hair was shorter than it had been, close cropped, curling around her scalp. As Mira turned around, she felt the tightness in Jillian's chest, and around her throat. Camila wasn't wearing the Angel's Bane, just a dark blue set of combat gear, not so different from the Sister Warriors Mira grew up with.

Camila sat at a chair in front of Jillian's desk and began to gnaw at her thumb for a moment, before realizing what she was doing. "I need your help."

"With what?"

"We need something new. Someone who can stand toe-to-toe with Ava. Someone to fight alongside Lilith, so that we can end this."

Mira cocked Jillian's head and sat down. "I assume you haven't located another Halo. So what do you have in mind?"

"You know this…" Camila gestured to the back of her head, or neck. "…I was there when he died, close enough to…I have things in my head. Things I couldn't possibly know. Things he was working on, experimenting with, before the end. Things that could help, if I knew how to use them."

Mira felt Jillian still herself. Keep any emotion other than curiosity and surprise from showing on her face as fire burned in her veins at the possibility that the thing that had manipulated her, manipulated her son, down the path that led to his death, that stood by as his ally ripped her son's heart out of his chest…

"Tell me more."

Mira blinked and they were in an unfamiliar place (my lab), with a padded table in front of her. Camila was there, as were her mom and Dora. Mother was there, her hair long and braided; she looked injured, bruised and cut, though not badly.

"I don't like it," Mother said. "The things he was trying…how can we trust anything that comes from him? Isn't that how we got into this whole mess?"

Dora shook her head. "I don't like it either, but Jillian's right. Camila too. We need an edge. Lilith's what, one and two against Ava at this point? How many more shots do you think she gets before Ava takes her out permanently? We got lucky there even is going to be a next time. We can't expect another shot."

Beatrice looked at Camila, who wore earnestness on her face, and nodded. "I agree. I'm sorry Mary, but we tried and…we failed. I failed."

Mother walked up to Beatrice and stood in front of her until Beatrice looked up. "So what. You think you've got it in you to finish the job, if it comes to it?"

"I think I'm next in line. And more importantly, Lilith and I have worked together for years, and I trained Ava. If the goal is someone who can work with Lilith to defeat Ava, then I'm the best choice for the job."

Mira noticed Camila smiling to herself off to the side, no sign of Adriel on her face. Mira took a deep breath; Jillian could be patient. "Then Beatrice, if you would disrobe please, we can begin."

****

"What…what are you…why are you show—"

"I want you to understand, Mira. It is so very, very important to me that you understand. You yearn for a world where Reya died. Imagine it for me. A world where that plan succeeded. Reya dead at your mothers' hands, or Lilith's, or even Camila's. How many of them died in that dream? Did any survive?"

"I…I don't know."

"We estimated half of them would not return. We were prepared for the possibility that they would all die, if it meant victory. No doubt that's why your mothers chose as they did. To see you. I understand the temptation. The compulsion, even. And even then, that plan would have bought us a chance, at best. And now?"

Jillian reached out and caressed Mira's cheek.

****

"That's not possible. Why would she do that?" Mira felt the shock as Jillian's words left her mouth.

"Because she doesn't care if she wins, as long as we lose." Camila had the Angel's Bane around their collar, but spoke with only one voice, and their eyes were both dark and human.

Lilith shook her head. Mira looked at Lilith's hand, the one less monstrous on the outside, and tried not to imagine what it would look like tearing out the heart of a young man she had never seen before, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. "This is how she wins. Even now, the population has been far too high for her to effectively manage her forces. I'm too mobile, and they're spread too thin. Now that Ava is back in the fight, it's too easy for us to disrupt supply lines and command structures. This makes it simple. Fewer, harder targets. Easier to focus Angels, or tarasks, or both. We'll need to be more cautious, assuming it even makes sense for us to strike at primary command posts at all anymore. Only a matter of time before they catch us with the numbers in their favor, and we can't afford to lose anyone."

"How is she doing it?" Mira asked.

Lilith shrugged. "New York seems to be the model. Taking advantage of unstable climate structures to push high-casualty events. North America is on fire with a lightning storm system that looks like it'll never end. She's doing something seismic and unpleasant in the Pacific that's going to cause catastrophic flooding who knows how deep inland. My guess is she replicates that as many places as she can, aims for a Biblical flood, or close enough to it. She's trying more creative methods here and there, including a few communicable diseases in the Southern Hemisphere that can't possibly be natural, but whatever methods she settles on, it's clear that she's been holding back. I suppose the good news is that we've put up enough of the fight that she had to take the gloves off. The bad news is that we've lost, and billions of people are about to die."

Mira's vomit spewed all over the floor before she could make it to a waste basket.

****

Mira could still taste the bile as Jillian continued. "I have achieved our goal, in every way that matters. A world free of Reya's direct influence. A chance for humanity to rebuild, to be better. A saved world.

Mira swallowed hard. "So why are you telling me this? Why am I still alive? Why do I still have my Halo?"

Jillian smiled. "Very good. Because, Mira, very soon you will have the privilege of a choice. Who you are, the circumstances of your birth, the Halo in your chest, all make you useful."

"To Reya."

"To Reya," Jillian answered, and cupped Mira's other cheek.

****

Mira watched on unsteady feet as Lilith carried Ava off a balcony and into the dark of the night sky. Beatrice's tattoos faded, and she too slipped away without a word, only casting a baleful glance back at Camila as she put up her hood.

"They're going after their girl, aren't they?" Dora was always the one to say out loud what the rest were thinking.

Yasmine shook her head. "Foolish. To put so much in jeopardy at a time like this. For a child they barely know."

"You would be surprised at how long a mother's love can endure." The words had barely left Jillian's lips before Mira felt the regret sink in. If she still had Dora's loyalty, Dora would have stayed. She excused herself instead.

Camila walked over to her slowly. "And how hot does your love still burn, Jillian?" The look on their face was not one of sympathy, or even pity. "It's been almost twenty years. Still holding a grudge? Should we be concerned?"

Camila was always concerned. They, and on their behalf, Yasmine, had thought about a future without Reya to a degree that it seemed the others never had. "Perhaps you could assign me more of your special guards. At least until the cancer is done with me."

The surprise on Camila's face looked like triumph, though they tried to school their features. "How long?"

"Hard to say. Eighteen months, give or take. Enough to see this to the end. After that…" Mira reached into her robe and took a headband to place upon Jillian's head, then summoned the chair from the next room with her mind and sat heavily. "You win."

****

"What happened to a world without—without Reya?"

Jillian tilted her head from side to side. "For nearly the whole world, Reya will be as good as dead. But not for me. And, if you survive, not for you."

"She will come for you in a little while. To present her terms. I know you will choose well. I will see you soon, Mira."

Jillian's hand on the back of her neck, the other hand on her forehead, and Mira was suddenly so very, very tired.

****

The man in front of her was choking back pain.

Mira watched herself from Jillian's eyes as the lab assistant drew blood from Mira's right arm. His own right arm shook as a circle of blood the size of a fist soaked through his right sleeve. The other lab assistant, the woman, ran to cabinet and pulled out a roll of gauze and a bottle of clear liquid, then slammed it closed with her hip.

Mira watched as she tried to turn to see, as Camila caught Mira's face in their right hand. "Eyes on us, Mira. Almost done."

Mira watched as the woman brought the other lab assistant the gauze, pressed it against his arm and took over the needle from him. He fled, blood dripping from the edge of his right sleeve to the floor.

"Hold this here for a moment, please," the woman instructed Mira, as her past self was finally permitted to look at the man walking rapidly away.

Mira felt Jillian's excitement, a finger on her left hand tapping involuntarily against the chair.

More conversation. As Mira explained the vaccine to herself, she felt the lie on Jillian's lips. She watched through Jillian's eyes as the woman grabbed a tablet to control the remote injection device, walked to another exit to the lab, and pushed something on the tablet. The device injected Mira. The woman gasped as blood, or something, pushed through her arm with enough force that it reminded Mira of a spear wound.

"You did great," said Camila. "Very brave." And they looked at Jillian. And Mira looked back.

Mira found the assistants were in another room, receiving emergency medical care. "May I?" Mira asked.

Each removed their bandages, so that Mira could see the wounds. The man had a hole in the crook of his arm, as though an arrow had pierced him at an impossible angle through his forearm. The woman had a similar would through her triceps just below the shoulder.

Camila looked at the wounds, then at Jillian, and began to laugh.

Later, Mira sat in Jillian's chair in the bathroom in Jillian's chambers, in front of a mirror hanging low on Jillian's wall. Mira reached into Jillian's shirt pocket and pulled out a small envelope, and a message inside from Lilith. Mira opened it, and read, and wished she understood what it all meant.

Then Mira looked up into the mirror, and stared Jillian in the eye. “Mira," she said to the mirror. "Listen to me very closely. I want you to trust your team, and everything is going to be fine.  Alright?  Whatever she says, whatever she offers you, be true to yourself, and we will win.  You can do this.  I believe in you.”

****

When Mira opened her eyes, Jillian was gone. She was alone again in her room with no door.

Only now, there was a door. Open, and inviting.

Mira stepped tentatively out into the hall. Every corner was well lit, though Mira could see no torches, no electric lights. No matter where she looked, it was as if the pale, featureless walls and floors were lit from somewhere just beyond the edge of her vision.

She wandered from the featureless halls, past unmarked crossroads, to corridors lined with strange curving geometric statues of impossible dimensions, helices and orbs, and twisting branches and waves that were barely supported, that surely should have toppled long since. Until at last, she came to a room.

The room was empty, and expansive, except for the twining columns, and the throne, and the thing that sat upon it.

Mira heard the words, but its mouth didn’t move.  

“Hello child.  My name is Reya.”

Chapter Text

She wants for nothing.  She wants everything.  She is free from the needs of the flesh.  She hungers endlessly.  The Tyrant is defined by her contradictions, but our relationship to her is simple: she is the enemy of all who live.

The Mirrorsouled, “Meditations on Reya”

The Tyrant then showed Mira many and wondrous things.

****

The field before Mira was dark, though she couldn’t tell why.  Could have been the clouds.  Could have been the grey, viscous rain that fell from this Reya-forsaken sky.  Could have been the natural shade of the odd, wriggling “grass” that carpeted the rolling hills and seemed to shy from her steps.  It didn’t matter.  She was there, and she would bring the light.

Arrayed across from her was an army.  They were vaguely human-shaped, like many of the beings who lived under the glory of Reya’s light, but from their flesh, the tell-tale red mist of the traitors, those worms who hid from their proper place in the flesh of the worshipful.  They wore armor, though not divinium.  Carried projectile weapons of some sort.  Also not divinium.  And so their weapons and their armor and their numbers would not avail them.

Mira gauged the distances, the height of the hill upon which she stood, the height of the hill upon which the army in front of her stood.  The unevenness of the ground put her at a slight disadvantage, but only in comparison to herself in other circumstances.  It would take longer, and she did not wish to waste time.

When she moved, faster than mortal eyes could see, she hardly thought of herself as drawing upon the Halo.  She was the Halo, and it was her; they had been one for so long, it felt not different that raising her arm, or wiggling her toes.  And her name, and her Halo, were known widely among the realms, and drew worship from the prayerful in great numbers.  And thus did she perform miracles.

She leapt into the air, and thought idly of her youth, when summoning a blunt, undirected energy from the Halo was beyond her.  No Halobearer had mastered the Halo as she had; nor would any other for as long as Reya reigned.  The protection of the realms was hers alone.  She in a heart’s beat fashioned the Halo’s glory into a great blade, a scythe of purity, and with Reya’s blessing did she harvest the unbelievers, the heretics, the traitors, and rent their hosts in twain top from bottom, and scattered their essence to oblivion.

Some survived, if briefly; the shape of the land would not permit all to be slain in a single blow.  And so Mira moved.  She had long since abandoned the peculiarity of weaponry, divinium or otherwise.  She was a weapon, and no blade could match her.  She flowed between raindrops, and condemned those who foreswore her mistress with ribbons of gold that danced and cut and the traitors were undone one after the next, until none stood but her in that place, and the dead would feed a bountiful harvest for the living.  

It had not always been so.  There was a time when Mira was not the Blade, but the Harbinger.  She strode the realms as a beacon, calling to her the armies of tarasks to lay low those who blasphemed against the righteousness of Reya. And none could slay her, nor lay even a blow upon her, and thus were all manner of beings in the myriad realms brought to the worship of Reya.

Now the tarasks were quiet. Obsolete, unless one of the Ascended should rebel, as the Abomination once did. Mira would not have minded testing herself against one such, but it was an idle thought. Mira doubted any Ascended would dare stand against Reya again.

Mira walked across the charnel field. Her heart pounded for haste, but she knew better than to risk herself. She would be careful, and cautious. But there was no need.

In the distance, the camp crested the edge of the land. The fencing that circumscribed it was sharp along the top, as always. The bodies inside were thinner than they should be. As always.

Mira walked through the fencing and let her Light sever behind her the chain that held the fence shut. The people in this place were put here for any number of false crimes, most notably worship of Reya and the absence of a vestigial finger, whereby those in power sought to divide the people who were truly people from those who were animals. Mira had a better way.

Her army flowed behind her and into the camp, bringing food and blankets and clothing and medicine, and those she liberated wept their thanks. Mira stayed as long as she dared, and comforted those she could, and then left to hunt.

Whether by road or by track, such places always needed a means by which to transport the people they sought to annihilate from where they belonged to where they would die. And where they belonged, inevitably, was populated by those who thought they could choose whom amongst them would live, and whom would not. Mira knew this for blasphemy.

She found the city easily, and in the city found the most ornate structure, and there found the one most well-protected. She slew every guard and dragged the leader to a public place where many gathered in awe or horror. She had much practice at different methods, and had concluded that long speeches were inferior.

"This one thought to divide you into those who were people and those who were not, and thereby to rule over you and decide those who would live and those who would die. For this crime is he punished by the will of the Almighty. Let none of you slay your fellows in hatred, lest ye be judged."

Their leader screamed as he died, and his death was shown as it happened throughout the realm, and all knew the power and the judgment and the glory of Reya.

After, Mira returned to the field where she had slain an army, and sat in the ruddy ground. She cared not for the condition of her clothing; she would return soon to the Shining Halls and all would be made clean. Except.

How many times had she done this? How many worlds had she purged of evil, only to find it again in a new realm in a new time? How often had she returned to the scene of her own justice, only to find the oppressed now the oppressor, or a new reason for atrocity and horror to replace the old? How many would she have to kill to make all the realms safe? Was it even possible to do so?

She had given so much for this. For her calling. To protect those who could not protect themselves. She thought of her parents, whose sins were beyond redemption, but not a daughter's love. She thought of her Mother, who had understood Mira's calling, and wished her well, but with a look of sadness so deep Mira did not know how to fathom it. She thought of Nadia, who had wept, and asked her to stay, begged her to choose another path.

And then did Mira, the Last Halobearer, look to the sky and demand “Is this all there is?”  And she was answered.

Is this not your desire?

****

The late spring sun pressed warm against Mira's back as she reached the top of the hill. Dimly, she recalled a warning from a woman she called Mother that she should never approach the top of a hill upright, lest her silhouette against the sky serve as warning to those who might do her harm. But who would possibly wish her harm now? And why would she deny the sight of herself to those on the other side?

Below, Nadia cradled their daughter in the early morning light. There were others in the distance who might see, others in Espoir whom Mira might have hailed had her eyes not been drawn to those two. But her eyes were drawn. She watched as Nadia looked up. As she adjusted Luz on her hip. As she raised a hand to shield her vision from the glare of the rising sun. As her face bloomed with joy.

There was a tension in Mira these days, always, when she returned home. Should she rush? With the Halo, she could cross the distance in an instant, waste not a second more apart from her wife's arms. In earlier days, Mira had always chosen this path. Now, though, Mira asked of herself: should I savor this? For there was beauty, too, in these moments, and love. The sight of her wife and daughter, lit by the dawn, happy, waiting for her? More and more, and that day as well, Mira would not rob herself of the fullness and joy of moments such as these. At times, she wondered if she was getting old.

Nadia bent her neck to kiss Mira's lips, and smiled against her. "So dramatic."

Mira shook her head and laughed. "I was just thinking how much I like those moments too. You like them, don't you little one? When you can see mommy coming home?"

"Gaa GAA!!!" Luz babbled and shook her fists and laughed in delight when Mira nuzzled her nose.

Mira pulled them close and breathed them in. "I missed you both so much." Then they walked back to their home, curled around each other; Mira had always hated not touching her wife when they were close to each other.

Inside, Mira played with Luz on a thick rug in the living room while Nadia made breakfast. As Luz crawled all over her, Mira marveled at Nadia's curls writ small, only really just starting to come in properly. Their daughter was so beautiful. Mira's memories of her conception were oddly indistinct, but she knew that it was possible, knew that what a Halo had done once, it could do again. And her love for Nadia, and Nadia's love for her, was no less than Mira's mothers' love for each other, then why should it not have been possible for them too?

"So? How did it go?" Nadia called from the kitchen. It smelled like eggs and cheese, and maybe sauteed onions? Mira never liked the taste when she was younger, but Nadia had a way of making everything better. Or maybe that was Mira getting old as well.

"Good! Jillian's new weather control device needed both of us to get it started, but it should be working just fine now. Crop yields worldwide should stabilize. Plenty of food for everyone." There was more she didn't say. A wraith-ridden band dispatched on the way back from the Protectorate. Negotiations with the representatives of those Shining Cities who still refused to acknowledge Jillian's regency.

"Oh that's wonderful! So do you think that will be it, then? I mean, what's left to fight over?"

"I hope so." But Mira wondered if it was true. She had hoped many times for peace, true peace, since Reya's withdrawal, but it always seemed like there was something else. The Free Cities were restless since Lilith's death, even though there was nothing left for them to do, no cause for them to fight. They had no easy access to the other realms any longer, nor any reason to continue to fight their doomed war in this place. The Shining Cities should have flocked to Jillian's banner, to be absorbed into the Protectorate, but they had resisted, even when it was obvious that all the plenty they wished for was finally within their grasp.

Jillian, with Mira's help, had tried to give everyone everything they could possibly want. So why wouldn't they stop fighting?

And then Luz grabbed ahold of Mira's thumb, and she left such thoughts behind for a while. She let Luz play with her thumb for a bit, then phased her thumb through Luz's hand and held it in reach for her to grab again. Luz never seemed to tire of it, clapping wildly and laughing every time.

"Do you think you can catch mommy? Nnnnnnope! Do you think you can catch mommy? Do you think you can catch mommy? Nnnnn- oh my!"

Luz launched a surprise attack crawling rapidly over and pushing Mira over to rest on her chest.

"That's my strong girl." Her sleepy girl as well.

After they ate breakfast, Chanel came by for Luz. "To give you two some alone time."

Laying in bed later, delaying their lunch, Mira let Nadia trace the arc of the Halo on her upper chest. "Do you ever regret this?"

Mira shifted under the covers to entwine her legs more deeply with Nadia's. "Regret what?"

"Making the choice you made. There were so many paths you could have taken. And your parents…I don't know. Sometimes I worry that you'll wake up one day and realize this isn't the life you should have chosen."

Mira kissed her wife, and tried not to lie. "I don't regret my choices. How could I regret anything that led me to you, and to our little girl?" And eventually they got up, and made lunch, and got Luz from Chanel and Hans. They talked with Jacques and Amina about what they should expect from Amina's pregnancy, and let them fuss over Luz. Then they went wandering and let Luz explore the woods and catch bugs and a turtle and fail to catch a toad and talk with a family of ravens that had decided to nest nearby. And no day could have been more perfect.

Except that Mira slipped out of bed that night, then through the wall and to the soft grass outside. The cool of the ground and the moss was soothing against her feet as she walked past the old green shed, past the wood-chopping stump, down to the pond where she once had washed clothes with her mom. She sat on a rock with her feet kissing the water and stared out at the reflection of the moon rippling in the night breeze, and thought about the world she had built for herself.

It was not the first time. She had made for herself something beautiful, a peaceful home, something her mothers had never really known, certainly not since they were children. She had friends, family, love, and all these things were safe, and would be for the rest of her life. And yet.

Part of Mira couldn't help but wonder whether she should be doing more. She had a Halo, an enormous power to do good for others. Was she not obligated to use that power? To make the lives of others better? To protect, to heal, perhaps even to lead? Had she been selfish, to husband her happiness in this corner of the world?

She thought of her mothers, and the cycles of abuse and violence they endured. Mira had broken free, though, hadn't she? Her daughter would never suffer as she did. She would never have to grow up without her parents, or without knowing their love, without seeing and feeling the evidence of it every day. What this not victory? If it was, Mira could not understand why it felt so incomplete.

And then did Mira, the Lost Halobearer, look out over the water and whisper “Is this all there is?”  And she was answered.

Is this not your desire?

****

It was the holiest day of the year, and all throughout the City the people were in jubilation. That day they celebrated the end of the Salvian Heresy, and the rise of a more just and perfect world. Fireworks bloomed bright across the City, bursts muffled by distance, and Mira watched and smiled and marveled at her Great Work.

She took no small pride in her accomplishments. Reya had been true to her word; once the Anomaly was slain, she withdrew entirely from Earth, leaving it in the hands of Mira. And Jillian.

Mira thought she understood Jillian, at the end. Understood how the pain of losing family could change a person. Could make them incapable of setting aside their hate for the one who had hurt those they loved. Mira had certainly hated Jillian, and that hatred had proven a comfort, and an inspiration, from time to time. Though what motivated Mira most was love.

That is how she thought of it, at any rate. Not a specific love, perhaps, a love for this person or that person. But a love for humanity. For the people who needed her. Her parents had warned her against this from time to time. "You need to live for yourself too, Mira," her mama would say. "It isn't up to you to be responsible for everyone," her mom would add. And she understood, on some level, why they thought so. But they hadn't needed Mira, not until they did, not until she was the only one who could save them, save everyone, save the whole world.

Sometimes she thought about what might have been, and Nadia most of all. It bothered Mira that she could no longer remember the exact expression on Nadia's face when Nadia said goodbye. That Mira was destined for bigger things than her. Mira hadn't known how to disagree then, and events had proven Nadia right. But she wondered still.

Mira was not without companionship, when she wished it. There were many who wished for her attentions, her time, her touch. But since Nadia, Mira had never felt that any of them wished for Mira, nor even that any of them knew that there was such a person. It was a strange experience, becoming a legend. An object of worship, rather than a person.

Yasmine spoke to her at times of the world before, advised her on the proper way to cultivate her image, to display it to the masses so that they would love the idea of her, and their adoration would fuel a new golden age of humanity. The ways she and Camila and the parts of Adriel that were Camila had planned to shape a world free from war and strife and hatred.

And it worked.

How could any mortal hate another for the God they worshipped, when a living Goddess walked among them, proof not only of the existence of the divine, but of the form of worship, the nature of worship, the tenets of worship? What need would humans have of doctrinal disputes when their deity would not merely listen to their prayers for guidance, but answer them? How could any person hate another for their ancestry, or the color of their skin, or their gender, or whom they loved, when Heaven forbade it in the form of an avatar who walked among them?

Perhaps a reprobate, a heretic-in-the-making, might ask unwisely whether Mira was truly divine, and had they not once thrown off the shackles of a Tyrant God, and how was this new God any better? But how could any gainsay Mira's divinity when the evidence of her miracles was all around them?

Not even Reya had seen such wonders. Never before had a mortal Halobearer wielded a second Halo. The resonance between the two allowed for all manner of techniques impossible for a single Halo to achieve. Arks in every major city in the world, cheap and clean transportation across vast distances, buttressed by solar-powered rail lines. A world reunited, the curse of Babel undone. A network of worship that spanned the globe, allowing for miracles once used to terrorize humanity to heal, to protect, to build, to grow.

She went back inside to eat the celebratory meal with her parents, as was her tradition. Perhaps this once they would pretend they thought there was something worth celebrating.

"I'm surprised you didn't ask Leila to join us. Or is it Vivienne now?"

"Bea. Leave it." Ava's mobility was still good these days, relatively speaking. She was in the chair, which meant today was a bad day.

Mira rolled her eyes as she sat down. "It's not like that, mom."

"Perhaps you should tell someone so. Make a public pronouncement. Do you think anyone will believe it? 'Anyone who shares my bed, or my friendship for that matter, is no more or less esteemed in my eyes than any other.' Do you think people will believe that?" Beatrice was in a mood, which meant someone had taken a liberty that they should not have.

"Bea. Please." Ava's voice was quiet.

"What did she do?"

Ava sighed and downed her glass of wine in two gulps. Then she poured herself another.

Beatrice was shaking.  "Do you care? Is there a line in your mind that one of your favorites could cross that would lead you to actually lift a finger to stop them? If she absolves sin on your behalf in exchange for favors of her own? Luxuries beyond her allotment? Or is that a price you are willing to pay for her company?"

Vivienne was a friend, and a dear one. Mira was certain she would not do such a thing. "How is the lamb?"

"Spoiled."

Mira's utensils clattered against her plate before she realized she had dropped them. "Can we have one meal, just one, where we celebrate my victory and everything I've accomplished and you pretend that you don't despise me?"

Conversation, predictably, ground to a halt after that. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last. Mira thought she should perhaps set a timer to see how long until one of her mothers or the other saw fit to tell her how horrible she was for leading humanity back to Eden. Mira wondered why she subjected herself to this. Perhaps she thought that it mattered, that it was important to have at least some people who would tell her things that she didn't want to hear, even if they hated her and were always wrong. Perhaps she thought that maybe, if she made the world perfect enough, they might finally tell her they were proud of her. That was her least favorite alternative.

"We don't despise you Mira." Her mama, the peacemaker now, after a lifetime of unimaginable butchery. "We just…we didn't want this for you."

"Didn't want what, mama? For me to succeed where you couldn't? For me to make a world where no one wants for anything? Where everyone is happy? Where no one suffers—"

"You are delusional if you think that—"

"BEA."

Her mom closed her mouth with a snap, and went back to picking at her food. Her mama looked up. "Just because you don't see the suffering doesn't mean it isn't there. This world isn't perfect. It just looks that way because everyone knows that they always have to seem perfect to you. So you don't see it when people hurt other people, or set themselves up in positions of power that they lord over others, because they don't let you. And you're not God, Mira. You can't be everywhere at once, and you can't see everything at once, and there is so much about this system you've created that you don't understand—"

"Why can't you ever just be proud of me?!? EVER." Her mothers had the audacity to look at her as though they were hurt. "You talked about breaking the cycles, how you always wanted to be the last Warrior Nun. And now that I'm doing what you couldn't, all I get from you is criticism. So what is it?! Just say it! You're jealous, is that it? That I did the thing you couldn't. I brought the peace you couldn't, I broke the cycle you perpetuated. Right? Because I don't see how else I could always be such a disappointment to the two of you!"

Ava paused for a bit before she answered. At least until the light subsided from Mira's chest. "Sacrificing yourself isn't breaking the cycle, Mira. Giving up everything good about yourself so that you can be a lonely figurehead atop a world where no one gets to think for themselves without your say-so isn't—"

Mira was on her feet. "I'm going for a walk." And she turned and walked through her balcony out onto the ground some hundred meters below.

As she walked, she brought her mother's chain mask over her face. It was traditional garb on this holiday, and she craved anonymity. Solitude in the crowd. She walked through the throngs. She watched as they used the celebration as an excuse to consume perception-altering substances, to scream, and fornicate, and abandon inhibition. She tried and failed to see holiness, or worship, in the ways of the crowd. And then she came to the square.

The statue in the square showed her in her moment of triumph. She was wearing her mother's chainmail mask, then as now, and holding aloft her other mother's Halo after she had wrested it from the flesh of the traitor Salvius. Salvius was depicted as well, facedown, long hair covering her face, Mira's foot upon her back just below the hole left by the Halo's removal.

She had hated her mothers for different reasons at different times of her life. She had hated them for their weakness. She had hated them for abandoning her. She had hated them for forcing her to be the one to choose what to sacrifice to save humanity in the end. She hated them for judging her for the choice that she made.

She hated them because sometimes she thought they were right.

And then did Mira, the Lord Halobearer and Queen of all the Earth, look to her own likeness and plead, “Is this all there is?”  And she was answered.

Is this not your desire?

****

And the scales fell from her eyes, and she stood once more in a great hall, and she looked upon the Tyrant, who sighed.

"Child, you must make a choice. I will not delay much longer."

Chapter Text

Camila,

This letter accompanies Ava and Beatrice’s daughter, Mira.  I must be discreet, in case the sight of this should pass through you to her.  She has a Halo, though she has certain characteristics which precede that.  Arrange for her to come to harm by another’s act in some small way so that you may observe and she may not.  Do not harm her yourself or attempt to do so under any circumstances.  I have seen what you will see, through to a greater degree, and believe you will understand Mira’s potential in a way that she, as yet, does not.  I trust you and Jillian to see that potential fulfilled.  I abstain from any vote that might come to pass, but you and Jillian share my proxy, if needed.  Good luck.

Lilith

-correspondence from the Queen of Hell to the Mirrorsouled, undated, circa 13 A.F.

All about them was desert, and the storm raged in the distance. Beneath their feet was something like pale stone, a wide plinth for a monument long since worn to extinction.

“When was the last time someone gave you a choice?” 

Mira's stomach clenched, and she felt a sudden burning in the back of her throat. "Why am I here?"

The corner of Reya's mouth turned up, but her mouth did not move when her words came. "A large question for one so young. It is good for us to discuss the answers, but we may start with the one you intended: you are here because I wish to see if you may be of use to me."

"You could…and you're going to give me a choice?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You mean, 'why do I not simply compel you, as I did your mother, or the Anomaly?' Why do I allow you to choose?"

"Yeah. You obviously … you did it to mama. You did it to Lilith. You could make me do anything, right?"

"I could make you do most things. Enough. And then in some small span of time, perhaps as little as a year, you would balk unexpectedly at a command of some importance. And we would be back where we started. I have no interest in continuing this cycle. My alternatives are to kill you, or to persuade you to serve. And so, you get to make a choice."

"But … why do I even get a choice? What do you want with me?"

Reya smiled. "You have no idea how special you are. I have had the Halos in my care for a longer span of time than you could comprehend. Not once has one created a life, or participated in its creation, until you. I looked into your memories, when you first came here. To have already been able to see what your kind can only see with the Halo … I am perhaps seduced by the idea of something new, and perhaps not for the first time. But I will not destroy you unless you force me to. And so I give you a choice."

"But the Halo …"

"The Halo is a tool, incredibly valuable, but not unique. I would not have left one to wander in the hands of your kind for centuries otherwise."

"Why did you?"

Reya lifted her eyebrows in a way that suggested a shrug. "Adriel needed to be contained. A group of warriors, invested with the authority of a locally powerful institution, empowered to hunt any of Adriel's followers who might seek to free him? A beacon to which to send my tarasks to maintain oversight of the task, and to ensure no mortal gained sufficient mastery of the Halo to become a threat? To trade a Halo for the indefinite imprisonment of the one who had sought to overthrow me was an easy decision."

Red lightning crackled in the distance behind veils of dust. Mira heard the whistle of wind, but no draft touched her. The air felt stagnant and desiccated. She wondered briefly if she could run, or fight, but didn't see how either could succeed. "And you think this decision will be an easy one? For me?"

Reya glided across the stone, and still her mouth did not move as she spoke.  Mira wondered if it even could.  “Your parents chose to abandon you without your consent.  They could have done otherwise.  They could have stopped fighting, made what life they could in the world they broke against my might.  They could have chosen to fight differently, to band together instead of splitting apart, so that you could have lived safely together.”

Reya stopped in front of her and knelt so smoothly it seemed she folded to look Mira in the eye.  “But their love for you was not as great as their hate for me, or for each other.”

Reya blurred in Mira's vision, hot and liquid, and Mira felt her neck tighten and ache as she tried not to sob.  

“And when their selfishness grew too great, they chose for you.  To try once more, to grasp what little taste they could of what they might have had. Of what you might have had. They chose to send you to the Anomaly, in the hopes that my will could not touch you in that place. She chose to send you to the Abomination. And the engineer Salvius chose to send you to me. And now here you are. And for the first time, you have a choice. To walk down a path of endless possibilities. Or to walk no further."

"What makes you think threatening me is going to work better than the brainwashing thing?"

At that, Reya actually laughed. “You mistake me. I am not threatening you; merely being honest." She cocked her head, considering. "I like you, in fact.  You remind me of someone.  She loved to explore, and just like you, she went on an amazing journey.  And at the end of this journey, she found an impossible place of wonders, and ruin. And do you know, she also had to make a choice. The people who sent her on this journey were selfish, and powerful. They would have taken these discoveries for themselves, if the could. The woman was not expected to survive, as so many explorers are not meant to survive. And if she survived, she was certainly not expected to find anything that she could use on her own, not without great risk." Reya drew close, and bend down slightly to look Mira in the eyes. "What would you have done, in her place?"

"I don't know."

Reya straightened. "I think you would have done the brave thing, even if it had risk. The way you took a Halo into yourself to save your mother, not considering whether you could even accomplish such a thing. How many beings, do you think, can grasp a Halo in their bare hand without it burning through their flesh? How many humans, other than you? But you were heedless of the risk, because you knew the consequences of failure. Yes. I think you would have done quite well had you found yourself in the Shining City, first to set foot there in aeons."

"Do you do this with everyone? Tell them they're just like you?"

Reya's smile flickered, settled into a half-smirk. “A fair question. Perhaps to Adriel I was a great scientist who would give him the chance to invent wonders.  Perhaps to Uriel I was a peerless hunter who wanted another to hunt by my side. Perhaps to Verchiel I was justice incarnate, undoing the evils that were done to me, and a chance for her to undo the evils that were done to her.  What does it matter, do you think? So long as I see you enough to understand you, and you understand what I require in exchange for granting you the freedom and power to shape the future you wish?” 

Mira thought for a bit as Reya watched her. "It feels like a trick. Like you … I don't know. And what about my parents? Are they … can they …" Mira felt her legs go out from under her and tried to hold back her tears.

“The ones who made you gave you up for victory.  For the peace they imagined without me.  They were foolish, of course, to think that my absence would bring peace.  But now you would give them greater care than they gave you?”

The words stuck in Mira's chest, sore and ugly and she was struck by the odd image of them brushing against the Halo.  “What do you…what does that look like?  Would you…would you free Earth?  Make it so people don't hurt each other anymore?”

Reya cocked her head and pulled together her eyebrows as though she was sad.  “Oh child.  What do you think I've been doing?”

Mira’s breath caught in her throat.

“Do you know what your planet looks like without me?  If I left, today, and removed every trace of my touch, left my followers to their own devices, did nothing further to help or harm your kind?”

Reya moved her hand as though gesturing to the world around her and the desert melted away in large swathes to reveal a forest beneath a morning sky.

"Come."

Reya led her up a hill and gave no prelude as to what awaited on the other side. It was the smell that warned Mira, as the wind shifted just before she reached the hilltop. That and the noises.

Mira had never smelled that many rotting corpses before, nor seen so many, stretching across the field before her in the thousands. Not all were dead, and those groaned in agony, whether of living or of dying. "What is this?"

"Just a battle. The sort of thing humanity occupied itself with when I left them to their own devices."

The sights and the smells and the screams overcame Mira, and she retched.

“Shall I show you more?  This is a small example, one I thought you would appreciate for its familiarity to the sort of fighting you have seen, but the truth is that this is nothing.  A drop in a bucket in the corner of a charnel house.  Forgive me, your language has space for concepts you will not know.  Here, something to show you a greater breadth of scale.”

The whole world changed into something gray, choked in mud and dust, and an endless line of men in uniforms spattered with both stretching off into the horizon in one direction. The dirt and mud and grime and darkness of that place did not touch Reya as she led Mira in the other direction to a strange hole in the ground, like an open tunnel that stretched out side to side endlessly. As she approached, Mira saw that the tunnel was filled with more of the filth-caked men.

"What are they doing?" Mira whispered.

"Waiting to die."

Then the world exploded before her, and Mira's scream was less than the buzzing of a fly compared to the noise that filled everything. It vibrated through Mira's body, like the rumble of thunder if thunder was deafening and endless and ripped apart earth and flesh and even though Mira knew it couldn't hurt her she felt it shaking something apart in her—

"I will spare you the extent of it. Even being present for the full span broke the minds of many," Reya said, and the devastation ceased all at once, punctuated by the sounding of horns. And the men climbed up out of the tunnel, and they ran across the field, and then they fell down dead. Some of them made it all the way to a coil of metal spread across the field before they became caught on it, and perished.

“Even this is but a moment in a place.  Your kind have murdered each other in so many ways you would find unimaginable, for so many reasons you would refuse to believe.  For the color of their skin, or where they were born, or the language they spoke, or what they worshiped, or how they worshipped the same thing they called God, that was always never anything other than me.  For whom they loved, or what they would make of themselves, or because they were different in one way or another, or for reasons so obscure that the generations to follow debated ceaselessly why millions had died. I could torture you endlessly with nothing more horrifying than what your kind have inflicted on each other for the whole of your existence.”

“I did nothing to stop any of this.  Shall I do nothing again?  Or shall I protect?  I have already placed many of your people under my protection, shaped their lives so that they will not harm each other or come to harm. I could do so for the rest. Or allow you to do so, if you would prefer to find methods other than mine. Any number of futures are open to you. So long as you submit to me."

And the horror of the past was gone, and they were once more on the stone in the desert. The storm seemed less distant now.

Mira tried to take a moment to gather herself. If she couldn't run, and she couldn't fight, she had to see what she could do. And maybe figure out what Jillian expected of her in the meantime. What Lilith had understood that Mira had not.

"My parents. I can't … I need them to be alive. And safe."

"You ask more of me than they would give, in my position."

"I know they want to … they planned to—"

Reya waved a hand dismissively. “It would have failed, in any event.  I once heard Adriel boast he could not be killed in your world, though this was moments before my tarasks sundered him and scattered his remains.  For them to try the same trick, again, was foolish.  Their strategy on the whole has been clever, to be sure.  It will be a long time before I have fully re-established control over the realms.  But I will have all the time I need.”

“So yes, I could let your parents live, I suppose.  You could not have any contact with them, of course, not at first.  I cannot allow for their influence to interfere with our work.  But they will suffer more than enough knowing that you have sworn to me. And they are no longer a direct threat.  There is only one true threat remaining.  Assuming you agree to terms.”

Mira didn't mean to hold her breath. 

“Once I made something new.  An experiment, a tool to hunt down my greatest enemy and end the threat he posed forever.  A mistake.  Too many methods, untested together.  She became even more powerful than I anticipated, and my control over her…certain human bonds undermine things.  And now the Anomaly is free, and powerful, and cannot reliably be chained, and so it must die. Your fidelity, and the Anomaly's death. If you accept, I will put you under the tutelage of my greatest warriors. Time will bend, so that your learning will be complete before the Anomaly knows to fear you. In exchange, your parents may live, and your world will be as firmly or gently under my thumb as you wish.”

Mira thought back to the visions Reya had shown her. She didn't know much of Reya's other realms, almost nothing, other than that there were people there who wanted their own freedom, their own happiness. "What about … about everyone else? The wraiths, the other realms … what happens to the people there?"

"The bargain is for Earth. A ruined backwater, the greatest use of which to me was as a prison. Perhaps you can make it more, perhaps not. But your home holds no great concern for me, beyond you, Salvius, and the Anomaly. I will not part with other realms so readily, nor should you presume to intervene in the affairs of places and peoples about which you know nothing."

"I know they want to be free of you. I know some of them came to Earth just for the chance to be free of you."

"Child, do not walk yourself down this path. Your parents, Salvius, every person from your world who understands what is now happening takes every breath in terror of what will happen if you decide wrong. I have shown you futures that could satisfy your every desire, and none seemed suited to your liking, but know this. There are worse futures. There are worlds ahead of us where you watch your parents die screaming before I rip the Halo from you, where you breathe your last staring at their corpses. There are worlds where I kill you in front of them, and sate myself on their screams, and make of them a symbol of the consequences of heresy. You are all so young; let me share a wisdom with you. A choice such as this must be weighed against the harshness of reality. Yearning for an impossible dream, however sweet, will bring you a feast of ashes, and nothing more."

Mira blinked, and they were back in the room with no door.

"The choice is consequential, but simple. It should not take you long to make the correct one. I shall give you a day to decide."

And then Reya was gone.

****

Mira had always wanted to help others. To protect people. She tried to put the choice into perspective. She imagined she might have leapt at a chance such as this even a few months before. To free Earth from Reya's tyranny. To do what her parents couldn't.

Further back still in the past, there was a Mira who would have leapt at the opportunity to banish Reya forever, so that no one would ever suffer the loss she had (or thought she had), so no one would ever lose their parents to the Tyrant again.

Now she didn't like that choice so much. She didn't want to kill Lilith. She didn't want to doom she didn't know how many worlds to fall back under Reya's sway, and to remain there forever. She didn't want to watch her parents die, and she didn't want to die herself.

She spent a while thinking through her options, coming again and again to the conclusion that she hated all of them. Then she started to try to understand what Jillian had been trying to tell her. About being true to herself and trusting her team. To understand what the Halo had shown her of Jillian's past.

Mira thought of the message from Lilith. She thought of the wraith-ridden who grabbed her arm in the alley. She thought of the wounded lab assistants. She thought of the tarask sliced to pieces on the floor of Jillian's palace. She thought of Lilith's questions about her time before she had the Halo, Uriel bleeding flame as he gutted her, a Shining One who struck her in the stomach, a wraith-ridden wolf on a ferry, a sparring partner who got in a rare hit. She thought she understood.

She didn't start to cry until she realized that she might die. She didn't stop until she decided she was sure that some things were worth dying for.

****

She woke in a set of fresh white robes. She stood up and was no longer in her room, or her cell. Instead she stood in the hall where Jillian had received her mother's Halo. Her mothers were there still, or again. Ava was no longer chained to anything; with no Halo, and no chair, and no cane, she seemed limited in how she could move. But she was awake, and alive, and slumped on the ground, holding herself up by her hands. Beatrice was chained next to her. Each was attended by a tarask standing behind her. Her mothers looked up as one, and Mira saw they were afraid.

Next to them stood Jillian, healthy and whole and unfettered. On the other side of Jillian stood Yasmine and Dora, bruised and cut. Yasmine looked like she had been crying. Behind them stood two people whom Mira did not recognize. From their arrogant expressions and pristine clothing, Mira presumed they were Angels.

Mira turned, and saw before her the Tyrant's throne, and the Tyrant upon it.

"Mira Silva, Halobearer. You have been brought before the throne of the Shining City to choose the future of your people. Though your mothers and their allies have raised rebellion against me, I will not insist on punishing the child for the sins of her mothers. In my generosity, I have offered you your life, and their lives, and the freedom of your people, in exchange for your faithful service. What say you, child?"

Her mothers cried out in unison behind her, but Reya waved a hand and there was silence. "The choice belongs to her, not to you. So. Mira. What is your choice?"

Mira took a deep breath, because she had never been more terrified in her life. "It has to be for everyone. Not just Earth. If you promise everyone can be free of you if they want, and you promise not to hurt anyone else, I'll do anything else you want."

Reya smiled, and it was like a doll’s smile, touching only her lips and her teeth.  “Then your choice is made. You know I cannot grant as great a boon as this to all people.  But I can grant it to you.  And I do.”

She heard her mama scream behind her.  “No, no, don’t you touch her!  MIRAAAAAA!!!”

Reya ignored the interruption.  “I promise that you will be free of me, and you will feel no pain.”

Her mom, her teacher, joined in the screams, begging now for Salvius to do something, before the sounds of both women were muffled.  Reya turned her right hand, so that her palm was angled slightly up and facing Mira. It began to glow softly.  “Any last words, child?"

And Mira smiled, and hoped she was right, that she wouldn’t die in this place.  She remembered the words her Mother taught her when she was little.  

“Any harm you do to me will be avenged sevenfold.”

She turned and looked at her parents as they struggled and screamed and cried against the claws of the tarasks.  It’s OK.  Everything is going to be OK now.  I’m not afraid.  I love you.  She tried to say these things with her eyes as tears leaked down, so full of love was she.  

“My parents are watching over me, always.”

She caught Jillian’s eyes as she turned back, and smiled more widely.  Mira understood.  She accepted what Jillian had done, and was glad, because it was worth the risk.  One way or another, it was over now.  She faced Reya with tears on her cheeks and hope in her heart and a smile that would have shamed the sun and spoke.

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper.”

Reya raised her hand.

****

Thus did the Tyrant seek to slay the Child.  And as she unleashed all her might, the Tyrant's own sword turned in her grip, for such was her evil that not even her own tools would suffer her to live.  And the Child’s Halo turned back the Tyrant’s strike sevenfold, and the Tyrant was slain by her own hand.  And her being was cast into dust, shimmering in the light of her vanity.  And then she was gone.  And all the peoples of all the worlds rose up at once in a great chorus and sang our joy to the Heavens.

And on that day, we were free.

-Sister Yasmine Amunet, “Our Liberation”

Chapter Text

To my parnts,

I mis you.  I ddnt no you but I mis you.  Holi mother ses you alwayz wach over me and I dont no how but Im glad and it maks me happy.  I wish I was ther to sav you from the bad woman.  Mother ses you protekted everywon and wen I get big I want to protekt everywun to.  I luv you mor then anyfing but ill be strong and not cri now even tho my hart hurts.  Maybe sum day I will get to cee you agen.  I wil mak you so prowd. 

Luv

Mira

-correspondence and drawing from the possessions of Holy Mother Mary of the Occitaine Cradle, estimated year of composition 5 A.F.; drawing depicts three smiling figures standing on a green surface under an anthropomorphic sun, one figure smaller than the other two

Looking back on that day, Ava would always remember what it felt like in those moments after, her eyes and throat squeezed tight.  Her guilt was like a swarm revealed by an overturned stone in the woods, skittering about too quickly and in too many directions to keep track of every thread.  There was the knowledge, bone-deep, that she had brought this on them all, had killed her only child.  The sense that she should have been stronger in those last moments, at least given Mira the comfort of her mother's love, instead of collapsing in her own despair.  Deeper, insidious, a guilt that grew more of itself, bacterial, in spite of its unfairness, was the thought that Beatrice was at fault for failing to protect Mira.  For allowing her to have a Halo in the first place.  Perhaps that was the one that kept her from opening her eyes, even when Bea begged her to.

“Mama?”

That was what finally slowed the flood of tear-drenched spasms that wracked her.  Mira's voice.

“Mama.  It's OK.  Open your eyes.”

Ava thought the voice sounded like Mira, though it couldn't have been Mira.  Mira was dead, had just been murdered in front of her and she had done nothing to stop it, could have done nothing to stop it–

“We won.”

She would wonder what happened next, as the shock overwhelmed her. Jillian opening a portal back to Earth, to Lilith, then leaving again. Lilith bringing them all to Mary, bringing Ava her chair, and Matteo and Inês and Lara and Curly and Mo. She knew these things happened, but the memories were indistinct, barely real. Her next clear memory was around a bonfire at the Cradle. Bea had pulled up a chair next to her and sat curled into Ava's side as they stared at the fire. Then Mira walked up with another girl, about the same age, a little taller, with dark tan skin and long black curls and wide terrified eyes.

"Mom, mama, um, I wanted to introduce someone."

Nadia was lovely, and Ava managed not to laugh at how starstruck she was. Ava was a little concerned that Bea would be too harsh with questions, and not without reason. In private moments at home, and on the journey to the Protectorate after the tarasks attacked, Bea had mentioned wanting to have a "chat" with the young lady that Mira seemed to like so much. Ava thought Bea's tone had been a joke, but still.

But Bea was lovely, and Ava had to stop herself from crying more than once to see her Bea being the mother she should have had. Giving their little girl (not so little whispered a voice in her head) the kind of love and acceptance that Bea should have had when she had her first crush.

The questions made Ava nervous, at first. She thought Nadia was going to start asking about the battles, the horrors, the "exciting" bits. But more than anything, the girl wanted to know about what the world was like before. What their lives were like. How they met. What they thought of each other. How they fell in love. Nadia seemed particularly impressed by the shared bed in the tiny apartment in Switzerland.

"I panicked," Bea recalled. "I think I did that quite often around Ava in those days. I knew she knew I was a lesbian, and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. I slept terribly on a sofa that was not made for the purpose for exactly one night before Ava ordered me to sleep with her."

Ava muffled a laugh. "You should have seen the look on her face. You were so … offended but also terrified?"

"Well it was extremely inappropriate for you to proposition me like that, and you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in person, and you were the Warrior Nun, and I had, perhaps, begun to think of you in ways I considered to be inappropriate, given my—"

"HA!!!! I knew it!! A confession, at last after all these years. You two are witnesses—"

"No, that's not—"

"She always insists I fell first, that she wasn't even thinking of me like that until—"

"You misheard me, I think—"

"Nope, I'm holding this one close. You were into me the whole time, this is amazing."

Mira looked embarrassed.

Nadia looked delighted. "You two are the cutest couple."

Mira rolled her eyes. "Noooo, don't encourage them."

"Oh, come on. Look at how they're cuddled up! Tell me you wouldn't want someone to cuddle you like that."

"No, gross, I would never—"

Mira stopped talking abruptly when Nadia slid closer and slipped her hand into Mira's and wrapped the other around Mira's arm. Mira turned bright red and stared at the ground intently.

Nadia leaned over to whisper in Mira's ear, though not softly enough. "Is this OK?" Mira didn't answer, or move. "I can stop if you want—"

Mira shook her head tightly and held onto Nadia's hand tighter. Nadia sighed and tucked in closer, resting her head on Mira's shoulder.

Ava shared a look with Bea and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "They're so precious."

Bea whispered back, "I think they're actually worse than we are."

Later, when Nadia had pulled Bea aside for story time for all her and Mira's little friends, Matteo and Inês following at their heels, Mira stayed behind with Ava.

"Can I sit with you?"

Ava nodded, and Mira slid over to her and sat in the chair Bea had vacated. Ava sighed.

"What?"

"I was just thinking how I missed the years when I could have held you in my lap."

A few moments later, Mira climbed awkwardly into Ava's chair, her legs hanging over the side. "Is this uncomfortable?"

It was. "No. This is perfect." Ava held Mira close.

"I think I like getting held."

"Me too."

"I was really scared for you, mama. A lot. I was scared when you were fighting the tarasks. And when I was waiting and didn't know where you were. And when I saw what happened with Jillian—"

"You saw?"

Mira nodded against Ava's collarbone. "Afterwards, in Jillian's memories. I tried to kill her, but she stopped me."

Ava wiped a tear from her cheek. Mira was too young for this, for any of it. To have had to survive what she had, to do the things she had. "I was scared for you too. Your mom and I both were. And I'm so sorry, Mira. I'm so sorry you had to go through all this. I wish I had found a better way to…"

Ava's breath left her as Mira wrapped her up in a hug. "It's OK, mama. It's not your fault." Mira pulled back and looked into Ava's eyes. "I love you, mama."

Ava tried to hold herself together. "Would it be OK with you if we tried to be a family now?" Ava began to cry before Mira had the chance to respond, and only cried harder when Mira nodded.

She was going to be a mom. Maybe not for as long as she wanted, or in all the ways she dreamed of when she carried Mira inside her. But for all the years Ava never had one. For as long as she could.

She didn't know what the coming months or years, or even days, would bring. But she knew she could finally live for herself, and the people she loved. She looked over at Lilith, standing off to the side, at Beatrice and Mira, and tried to let the tension go. To accept that, for the first time in over thirty years, she was free.

****

Mary would remember regret. She thought when she was younger, or maybe just hoped, that her regrets would lessen over the years. Regret about letting Shannon die. About losing her cool at the Vatican and getting captured. About never seeing her mom again. But they didn't. They just sort of hardened over, like old scars, and instead stuck to the inside of her mind. And now she had another one. Maybe she could at least apologize to everyone for this one. While it was fresh in her heart.

Then she looked over at Mira with Ava, and decided it could wait a little longer.

"How you doing, grandma?"

Dora sat down beside her.

"Grandma? Really?"

Dora smirked. "I see those grays. You older, distinguished ladies need to own your age. Embrace it, you know?"

"That's big talk for someone who still dyes their hair. The purple's nice, but if I check those roots…" Mary made an exaggerated show of peering at Dora's hairline.

Dora shook her head. "Shut up."

They sat for a while, staring at the fire. One of Ava's cats, the calico, started rubbing up against Mary's leg, and she scratched it's cheeks idly. The dogs were in constant motion, moving back and forth between Ava and Mira, Beatrice and the children, and Lilith, lurking off to the side.

Mary passed Dora a flask. Dora took a cautious sip. "Damn. What is this?"

"That's the good stuff. Old world whiskey. Had that one stashed away for a special occasion. Happy victory day."

"Happy victory day indeed."

"So what happened?"

Dora shrugged. "Jillian made a play. Didn't think she had it in her to deal with Reya. She put Mira in Reya's sights, Reya did her thing, poof, no more Reya."

"And Mira?"

"Halo put her back together. I don't think either of her moms saw the state she was in, thank God for that. They both broke down when it looked like the end. Wish I hadn't seen it either."

"So what's next for you? Figured you'd have a Cradle somewhere now, not messing around with Jillian and Camila."

Dora shrugged. "I went where I thought I could do the most good. Doubt Jillian wants me back now, judging by the fact she didn't trust me with her plan. Maybe a Cradle would be the thing. 'Mother Dora.' Has a nice ring to it. What about you?"

Mary felt old. But some days, maybe that wasn't so bad. These people were her people. She protected them. Taught them how to protect themselves. And it felt good. In her sappier moments, she thought Shannon would be proud.

"I think I'm good right where I am. This has been home longer than maybe any other place in my life. I'm happy here. Content." She side-eyed Dora. "You'd like it, if you can stand not being where the action is."

Dora laughed softly and shook her head. "Yeah, wouldn't have thought that would be for me. Maybe I'm getting old."

"Worse things to get." She saw across the fire that someone had pulled out some old instruments and started playing. Nadia dragged Mira off to dance, which meant it was as good a time as any for a hard conversation. "Let's have a drink together later, yeah? Catch up."

Dora gave her a lazy salute, and Mary made her way over to Ava and Beatrice.

Ava looked up first. "Hey."

"Hey yourself, stranger."

Beatrice nodded at her.

Mary took a deep breath. Better to just be done with it. "I messed up. And I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Beatrice and Ava looked at each other. Ava asked, "For what?"

"I knew. About Mira. Lilith figured it out. When you two were MIA, she asked me to agree to let her take Mira to the Protectorate. To tell Camila and Jillian and Yasmine what Mira could do. And I said yes. I made her wait, tried to give you time. But in the end, I said yes. I swear I didn't know they would do what they—"

"It's alright, Mary." Mary was surprised that it was Beatrice who was willing to forgive, between the two of them. "We know you didn't know. We know you would never put her in danger on purpose."

"I did though. Even if it wasn't on purpose. I did."

Beatrice shrugged sadly. "So did we."

Mary nodded and looked over at where Nadia and Mira were spinning each other arrhythmically. "So, how'd I do?"

Ava started to cry, and pulled her into a hug. "You did so good."

****

Beatrice would remember forgiveness. There was so much for which she felt responsible. So much pain, so much loss. And then she tried to apologize, to beg forgiveness. It was her fault, after all. She had broken protocol to see Mira. She had allowed her to be kidnapped from Espoir, allowed herself to be tracked and baited by Uriel. She had allowed Mira nearly to die, to become a Halobearer. She had failed to see Mira's power, been too soft in her training, been too weak in general. She should have been better, but she wasn't good enough. Had never been good enough.

"I'm sorry." She had said it so many times she feared it would lose its meaning. Or had she only thought it? She was sure she had withheld apologies for fear someone would accept them, and more than once. Best to cover all possibilities. "For everything. I'm so—"

"I forgive you."

Beatrice didn't let herself break at Mira's words, not this time. She wouldn't be weak again, not even here, surrounded by friends, by those she loved, safe for perhaps the first time in her entire life. What did she know about being safe?

"I don't know how to be forgiven. I think maybe I made things worse because of that. And because I'm afraid."

Mira frowned. "You don't have to be afraid anymore, though. Reya's—"

"I'm afraid that I don't know how to be the mother you deserve."

"When you were younger, before, did you ever think about having a kid?"

"Sometimes."

"Did you ever think about what it would be like to hold her just because you could?"

Beatrice's mouth felt dry. "Yes."

"Then just do that. Like you imagined."

Beatrice was sure the hug wasn't quite what she imagined when she was younger. She felt awkward at first. Then less so, as she stopped thinking about it as something to do "right" or "wrong." Then none at all when it occurred to her that she was holding her little girl, not because she was terrified of losing her, or in agony over having hurt her, but just because her daughter wanted to be held. She felt happiness stir in her, and nothing moved to strangle it.

And then Mira said "I don't need you to be perfect for me. I just need my mom. OK?" And Beatrice broke.

She could not think of a time when all she needed to be was herself. Certainly not with her parents. Nor at boarding school. By the time she became a Sister Warrior in the Order of the Cruciform Sword, the need to be perfect was a part of her. What other value could she have?

Perhaps before Ava came back. She hated that thought. That she might have only truly been able to be herself, to live as a person and not as a weapon, as someone striving for impossible perfection, in Ava's absence. Even then, the scars of losing Ava were deep within her. But she had resolved to try. And then Ava came back as Reya's puppet. And war came with her.

She wanted to say these things aloud, but didn't know how. Was that her parents' influence, she wondered? Their example? Or something within her, another flaw?

She felt Ava touch her arm. "It's OK. You can talk about it when you're ready, OK?"

Beatrice nodded.

The three of them held each other for a time, there by the fire, as Beatrice considered what she wanted to say.

"I don't know what to say very often. I say the wrong thing in anger, or I say the thing I mean to say too late. I love you both so much. And I don't know how to be a mother. My own was not an example I wish to follow. And I don't think I deserve another chance. But I want to try, Mira."

And Mira held her long and tight and Beatrice thought that maybe she could accept this joy and love as found, without worrying whether she had earned it.

Ava wiped the tears from Beatrice's face and asked "Where to next, then?"

Beatrice turned to Mira. "What do you think, my darling?"

Mira bit her lip. "I'm not sure. I was thinking here or Espoir? I thought I would want to come back here, but … I don't know. People have been acting weird. Not Nadia or the Holy Mother, but everyone else … I don't like it."

Beatrice's heart broke a little. "You can visit. With the Halo, and no more need to worry about tarasks, you should be able to go back and forth quickly. A few hours, maybe."

"What about the river?"

Beatrice looked at Ava. "I suppose we never tested whether she could walk on water, did we?"

"I can walk on water?!?"

****

Lilith  would remember the moment Beatrice realized Lilith had betrayed her. Lilith was standing apart from the fire, watching Mira talk to Beatrice, waiting for it to happen. And then Beatrice’s shoulders stiffened.  Lilith watched her nods stiffen, her smiles go plastic as she waited for the opportunity to excuse herself.  Lilith briefly considered teleporting to the other side of the world.

"You knew."

Lilith had known this was coming from the moment she decided to bring Mira to the Protectorate. She thought back to all she had done for them over the years. Killing tarasks and Angels with Beatrice. How many years had she spent looking for Ava around and between battles, after Reya's conditioning broke? Finding Ava. Finding common ground with Ava, knowing what it was to have Reya inside your head. To regret the horrible things you had done. To feel like a monster, and know you were right to feel that way. She thought she would always treasure that time, even if Ava never spoke to her again after this. The time after with Beatrice. Helping her heal after Zuriel. Bringing them together again. 

It hurt her heart to think what she might have thrown away. She didn't know then what to say, and the intervening weeks had revealed nothing that could blunt or save her from the truth.  "I knew.  I'm so sorry."

"When."

Lilith tried to breathe.  "I thought it was an attack when she first arrived.  I grabbed her by the neck, pushed a nail in, just enough to scratch ... it felt like someone took a sword to the back of my neck.  Then she told me about the Halo, and how Uriel was hurt when he hurt her, how she could see wraiths without the Halo ... I just asked about fights she'd been in, times she had been hurt ... I confirmed it first, watched what happened when someone hurt her, but once I knew ..."

"You sent her to Camila.  To Jillian.  As a weapon."

Lilith nodded.  "I'm sorry."

Beatrice nodded mechanically, repeatedly, detached from whatever emotion she was speaking.  "She could have died.  She almost died, she..."

Lilith caught Beatrice before she collapsed.  Held her as she broke again, unfurled wings to block her from the sight of the others as she wept.

Eventually, Beatrice caught her breath.  "I'm so angry with you," she whispered.

"I know.  I know.  I deserve it, I--"  Lilith paused as the tightness in her throat stopped her voice.  "I can leave.  I don’t...I don't expect you to forgive me, either of you.  I didn’t know what else to do, but I shouldn't have..."

Lilith felt Beatrice shake her head. "Stop. Just stop. I don't want … I don't want to be angry any more. I don't want us all to feel guilty for all these terrible things we've done. I want to start over and to try to figure out how to live."

Lilith let out a shaky breath. "I don't deserve forgiveness."

Beatrice shrugged, looking like she was at her wits' end. "I forgive you anyway."

Then Lilith's wings concealed her own tears, and she buried her face in Beatrice's neck, and Beatrice did the same as they held each other for a time.

"What about you, my dear Lilith? We've missed you so much. Will you finally be free?"

Lilith wanted to say yes more than anything. To leave her cities and her negotiations and her titles behind and live a life for herself, for her own happiness. Except.

The Shining Cities were still scattered around the world. They would be diminished without Reya, but that might only make them more dangerous. Jillian had a Halo, and with Camila and Reya dead who knew what ambitions she might entertain. Not to mention Reya's surviving Angels, and any number of power-hungry beings with armies at their backs and the knowledge of other worlds.

She hugged Beatrice more tightly. "Not yet. There's too much to do."

Beatrice squeezed back, then pulled away. Not too far. "When you're ready, we'll be waiting for you." And she pressed a kiss to Lilith's cheek and went back to Ava and Mira.

Lilith stood there for a while, looking longingly at Beatrice, and Ava, and Mira. She would enjoy tonight. She could do that, at least. Then she would figure out how to protect the people she loved, and the people who couldn't protect themselves. And then, maybe.

Someday.

****

Camila would remember dying.  

They were so scared.  Their body lacked the resilience of Adriel's. But their guards had known what to do. Had cleared the rubble with wraith-ridden strength. Had gotten them to the Ark in time. By then, the time dilation was such that Reya was already dead.

Camila stepped from the chamber rejuvenated, and more.  With Reya gone, there were so many tools unattended, so many that no one but them now knew how to operate.  They had designed many of them, after all.  Half of them had.

Even so, they had been unsure that the process would work.  How could Reya parcel a portion of her divine energy and bestow it upon another when she was dead?  But it was as they theorized: with the Tyrant dead, all that worship now coalesced easily around those who were most prominent in the minds of the liberated.  And who more worthy of worship than the Angel's Bane themselves?

“I thought I might find you here.  When the rubble was cleared and there was no body, I mean.  Yasmine was beside herself.  If you care.”  

Jillian. 

Camila turned and let their regret show.  “I'm sorry I couldn't tell her.  I couldn't risk–”

“I don't know whether to be insulted or amused that you're hiding your real face from me.  Or should I be concerned that you're trying to get me to underestimate you?”

Camila smiled, and let their right eye shine true, and spoke in their unified voice.  “We are sorry, you know.  I love her.”

“Do you?  Is it love if you would sacrifice it for your own ambition?”

They rolled their eyes.  “We've always been willing to sacrifice our own happiness for the benefit of others.  Always.”

Jillian walked past them, eyeing the machinery.  Like all of Reya's technology, THEIR technology, its form was calculated to inspire awe and devotion, to better harness the worship of mortals.  “You know, there's a question I never asked in any of our conversations.  Maybe I was afraid to, before.”  She turned to look at them.

Camila smiled.  “‘What's next?’”

“What is next?”

They shrugged.  “We wouldn't have killed you for asking, you know.  We’d have even told you the truth.  We're going to save everyone.  Everywhere.”

“From what?  From whom?  Reya is gone.”

Camila laughed.  “From themselves, of course.”

Jillian let the silence linger.  Camila watched Jillian tongue the inside of her mouth, like she was tasting the future.  “Not from famine or disease.  Not from disaster, or sadness, or the ravages of aging.  There's so much we could do, that you could do.  And you just want to take her place.”

They frowned.  “No, we don't.  We don't want to live a pathetic existence driven only by power, letting everyone else suffer, making them suffer, as long as they worship.  A false God crouching on a midden heap in the midst of chaos, feasting on unanswered prayers.  You're so obsessed with your toys, your ideals, your faith in science as the cure for suffering.  You would understand that none of what you want to achieve can happen without order, if you weren't such a child.”

Jillian cocked her head to the side.  “A child, you say…another question I've been meaning to ask you.  How long have you known about Mira?”

Camila shrugged.  “We found out just how special and dangerous she was when you did.  But a miracle child, created by a Halo, borne by a Halobearer, sired by a flesh-bound tarask?  We've had high hopes since before she was born.”

"And now you think she'll be your tool? You think her mothers will permit that?"

“Where do you think all that power is going to go?  The Mirrorsouled, the Angel's Bane?  To the Savior of Humanity? Some, certainly.  But perhaps to someone new?  We think ‘the Liberator’ has the right sort of uplifting ring to it, but there's just something about ‘Godslayer,’ isn't there.”

Jillian's mouth thinned. “Hardly to your benefit.”

“Mmm.  Did you tell her how long you'd been planning this?  How long before you met her, I mean.  How long you’d been planning to betray her mothers." The side of Jillian's neck throbbed; unAscended, then. Unfortunate.  "No?  What about Lilith?  Did you tell her?”

Jillian sighed.  “Lilith was always going to be a challenge.  I suppose we’ll see if she’s willing to listen to reason.  Fortunate that I have the infrastructure to prevent her teleporting, thank you for that.  I’ve learned a great deal from you over the years.”

Camila shook their head.  “You know, we didn’t think you had it in you.  To make a deal with Reya, of all people.  We suppose we underestimated you.  And overestimated her, to think she wouldn’t know how dangerous you are.”

"You're more alike than you realize."

Camila shook their head. "No. We know that people deserve to have their prayers answered."

"Fight your battles, then, in this desolation. War with your former comrades as you will. But test me and I promise I will show you how much I have learned."

Camila felt the corner of their lips twitch. "Jillian?"

"Yes?"

KNEEL

Jillian took a half step back at the force of the Voice. "Never."

It had been worth a try.

Jillian stepped to the center of the room. "The Ark is mine now. The tarasks have been destroyed. You will not return to Earth. You are banished. Squat in your false Heaven and rule over nothing and think on what the worst part of you did to my son."

A portal opened behind her, silvery blue, and Jillian walked backward though it. Then the portal was gone.

Camila didn’t mind.  They were exactly where they wanted to be.

****

Nadia would remember when she realized she was going to lose Mira.

It wasn't when Mira promised to come back every week to visit from Espoir. It was before that. When Mira walked up to Matthieu, and Matt couldn't say anything. And Nadia looked around at everyone and saw that they weren't looking at Mira the same way anymore.

Nadia didn't think Mira noticed, and if she did, Nadia doubted she understood. Mira didn't think that way when it came to people. Nadia loved that about her. Loved how big Mira's heart was, how she always wanted to help, how she so often took things at face value. And more than almost anything, Nadia wanted to be there for Mira, to help her see a few steps ahead.

Almost anything.

Mira was so happy that night. That beautiful smile that Nadia liked to imagine as she fell asleep was on full display. Mira seemed to have made things right with her moms. She was alive, and healthy, and she was the biggest hero in the history of everything.

Nadia didn't believe everything she read, but she read enough to have an idea of what was going to happen next. Everyone, everywhere, was going to love Mira. Powerful people were going to want her to help them do whatever it was that powerful people wanted to do. They'd flatter her, tell her how amazing she was. And they'd be right, even as they lied.

They wouldn't know what it was like to be comforted by Mira during a storm. They wouldn't know how selflessly she would risk herself for others. They wouldn't have memorized the patterns of freckles on her cheeks. They wouldn't know the sound she made when she beat the older kids at a footrace.

But they'd be there, and Nadia wouldn't. She couldn't leave her parents behind. Her home. And Mira would see the world, and maybe more than just this world. And the people she met would be beautiful and worldly and say beautiful things, and maybe some of them would even love Mira, and Mira would love them.

Would Mira want someone like Nadia then? Someone who's never been anywhere or done anything worth telling the world about?

Maybe travel will be safer now. Maybe she could travel to the Protectorate, if the Holy Mother allowed it. Study there. Maybe she could travel like the Sister Warriors, collecting and spreading knowledge of the past, of ways to rebuild. Maybe she could help put the world back together.

Maybe then she could be the sort of person Mira looked at like Mira was looking at her then. Only forever.

Maybe she could be bold, and Mira would look at her like that for a while longer.

"I love you."

****

Mira would remember how embarrassed she was when Nadia said "I love you" and Mira choked on her own spit. That was a problem, because it meant that Mira couldn't answer right away, and Nadia started to look nervous.

Mira managed to wheeze out an "I" before a coughing fit took her. That was alright, because at least then Nadia started laughing.

"I love you." Still wheezy, but good enough apparently.

Nadia leaned her forehead against Mira's, which felt pretty amazing. "So are you that red because of the coughing, or…?"

"Shut up."

Nadia chuckled and pulled Mira into a hug and buried her face in Mira's neck. "I'm really scared."

"Of what?"

"I'm scared if I say it out loud it'll come true."

"OK, you don't have to—"

"I'm scared I'm going to lose you now."

Mira sat with that for a bit. She wasn't sure what to do, or even what that meant. She thought hugging Nadia tighter might help.

"I just feel like you're so special, but now everyone knows you're special for another reason, and you're not going to come back, and…." Nadia trailed off and started shaking. Mira felt wetness on her neck.

"I'm—" The thought hit Mira that she might lose Nadia and he throat seized up. She was embarrassed to cry in front of everyone, but she thought probably no one could say anything about it, what with her saving the universe and everything.

After they had cried on each other for a bit, Mira tried again. "I'm coming back to see you all the time. I'm so fast, you'll see, I'll be back all the time to visit you. And maybe you can come visit sometimes, and I'll make sure you're safe the whole way, and probably my mom will come with us because she gets like that. And maybe your family could come stay in Espoir too some day, if they want. But you can't lose me. I won't let you." And she meant it.

Nadia nodded, and shifted so that she was sitting between Mira's legs with her back to Mira, so Mira could wrap her arms around Nadia and rest her head on Nadia's shoulders. She didn't think at all about how gross it was when her mothers did things like that, because that was different.

After a while, Mira felt a sharp tap on her shoulder from a clawed hand. "May I borrow Mira for a moment?"

Lilith led her off a bit, away from the fire and the celebration. "I wanted to apologize to you, Mira."

"You knew. From the alley."

"And before."

"Did you know what Jillian would do?" Lilith shook her head. "Then it's not your fault."

Lilith took a deep breath, and cast her eyes to the ground as she exhaled. "Your mothers are the most important people in the world to me. Whatever life you wish to lead, you may. I will make sure of it. And I hope you will be able to find the freedom that none of us ever did."

Mira wasn't sure she understood, but she nodded all the same. "Will I see you again?"

Lilith smiled. "If the three of you will have me, I wouldn't stay away for anything. For now, I'll be back tomorrow to take you where you want to go. Have a good night, Mira."

Lilith stepped back, and Yasmine took her place. Mira had seen her here and there throughout the evening, off to the side,writing in a small book. She had damp lines running down her cheeks. "Well, Mira. I suppose this is goodbye for now."

Mira nodded. "I'm really sorry about …"

Yasmine nodded. "Thank you. I think you and I have a lot to talk about. But for now, I want you to enjoy some time for yourself. We can talk about the future another time." She gave Mira a stiff hug, and whispered "You were amazing." Then she walked over to Lilith and put her hand on Lilith's arm and then both of them were gone.

"Mira!" Ava waved her back over. Mira tried to hide a yawn; she didn't usually get to stay up this late, and she wasn't about to ruin it by letting anyone think she was tired. "I think it's just about time for bed."

"Mamaaa. Come on, it's a party!"

Her mothers looked at each other like they knew something she didn't, but the joke was on them, she knew it too. She just wasn't about to admit it.

Mira walked over to them, and definitely hid the fact that she almost stumbled on her way over. It wasn't fair that she should be so tired, and equally unfair that she was going to have to go to bed after saving the whole world. Maybe she could figure out a way for the Halo to keep her awake.

Mira hugged her moms. "Do we really get to be a real family now," she whispered.

Both of them felt like they were trembling, but they both said "yes," so that was OK.

"Can Nadia stay we with me tonight?"

"Absolutely not."

"Bea." Ava looked at Beatrice and raised her eyebrows.

"It's different. You know it's different."

"What do you think is going to happen? You think she'll get pregnant?"

"You did."

"MOM!" Mira wanted to melt into the ground. Then she remembered she could, so she did.

The sound of her mama's voice was muffled, but Mira hadn't dropped so deep that she couldn't hear. "Mira. Mira come out, we're sorry. Bea, say you're sorry."

"I could just pull her out."

"Bea."

Her mom sighed. "I'm sorry. I promise I won't say that where Nadia can hear."

"And?"

"Fine. Fine. And Nadia can stay with you tonight. But no funny business!"

Mira pulled herself out of the ground.

Ava was trying not to laugh. "Funny business?"

Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm seventy. I've been seventy for the last twenty years, apparently."

Ava clapped her hands in delight. "I win! I win! You admitted it!!! No takebacks!"

Beatrice's sigh was long-suffering, and fond. "Come on. Bed, for all of us."

Mira slumped against the wall at the base of the stairs in the cloister while her parents said goodnight. Nadia cuddled up next to her. Mira definitely didn't fall asleep like that, and definitely didn't need to be carried upstairs by her mom, but she did wake up as she was getting tucked in and got a hug and kiss goodnight from both her mothers.

She fell asleep thinking that, no matter what the future held, she could return to this feeling, to these people. To the knowledge that, above all else, she was loved.